


Hyenahurst

by Lovelymayor



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, High School, Setting: 2003
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-10-11 16:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10469556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lovelymayor/pseuds/Lovelymayor
Summary: A new OC-centered episodic fic series revealing the lives of high school students in one of Sahara Square's most complicated neighborhoods: Hyenahurst. Set in the distant bygone era of 2003.





	1. Weekend Warriors

“Mom, I’m a teenager now, you can’t force me to be a little version of you,” I huffed, grabbing my backpack, my constant companion, and heading to the door. We had always lived on Olive Street, in Hyenahurst, in a nicer three-bedroom sandstone. My room was on the second floor, but I was more interested in being outside than sitting in my room on the computer. I had plans. Just when I thought I was off the hook, mom bellowed from inside the kitchen, stopping me in my tracks.

“Lyta! I’m serious. Some of the mammals in this neighborhood are fine. Some. Your friends are trouble. After you skipped school last week I—I was beside myself! Do you think your father works hard to put grass on the table so you can skip out of school and disappoint us like that?”

Mom came marching out as she gave me the business; I hope my hips aren’t as broad as hers when I’m her age. She was wearing her floral print dress with an apron over it, I guess she must have been doing the dishes from breakfast; we had roast cactus with some fruit compote.

I stopped in front of the tall mirror in the entryway so I could see my horns. As an addax, I've always been eager to see them grow like mom's. The way they would curl up and around in a few years—way cooler than straight horns like you see on a oryx. That morning I had tied ribbons up the lengths of my admittedly short, straight horns, pink and blue, and they looked adorable. It was something mom used to do for me when I was a calf, and I’ve never grown out of liking it. I pulled at my low rider jeans and pushed my glasses up my snout, trying to put on the coolest exterior I could. Not that being cool would help me with mom.

“I won’t do it again. But it’s Saturday, and I always go out with my friends on Saturday. So let me go, okay? I promise I’ll make you proud some other time!”

Mom put her hooves on my shoulders. I was skinny for an addax, and she made me look downright small. Dad did, too, but that was a whole ‘nother issue. Still, I probably had more growing to do. I was only sixteen.

“Just be back in this house before dinner! We’re having flower stew.”

“Honey? Have you seen my red tie?” Dad’s voice was the last thing I heard from the house as I slipped out the door and closed it behind me.

As soon as I reached the bottom step in front of my house, I was smiling as broad as could be.

It was mall day.

I only had to trot a few blocks before I reached my friends’ house. The Sahara heat sweltered in the best possible way; dry and comfortable. It wasn’t summer yet. My white fur reflected plenty of that sunlight, and I had on this light blue sheer top that kept air close to my body. It wasn’t often I stopped to think about how much harder it was for mammals with longer fur, or darker fur, even. The hyenas on the block were always joking that I had ‘white privilege.’ What they seemed to forget was that my coat got a little darker in winter to help me stay warm. Thinking about it, that might have been what they were jealous of.

“Ahlan Lyta!” Kabirah strutted down the sandstone steps of her home. The house was a little run down, the walls painted with a faded camel hump design reminiscent of the last owners. As always, Jaide followed after, his comparatively small frame dwarfed by that of his sister, who was on the high school wrestling team. They were both spotted hyenas, light tan fur with dark manes and golden eyes, but

their body types couldn’t be any more different.

Kabirah was big – most female hyenas were. She always wore ripped jeans and tank tops, and I was never sure if she bought them ripped or if she couldn’t afford new ones. Her mane had a way of falling down one side of her neck, and she never took the trouble to comb it. An old team jersey with the midsection ripped off hung on her shoulders, showing her brawny stomach. There were dark, wet patches under the arms of the jersey, and it wasn’t even that hot yet.

“Ahlan, haha, you’re sweating! Were you working out?” I asked as Kabirah looked at me and flexed. I always added a laugh here and there to fit in. It was forced, but the hyenas didn't seem to notice the insincerity.

“I was spotting her!” Jaide added triumphantly, putting his arm around my waist. I looked both ways, then leaned down to kiss him on the cheek.

Jaide was Kabirah’s brother. He was a bit of a runt even for a male hyena, and had a tendency to wear blouses meant for girls of other species that were close to his size. He had an excellent sense of humor, and was practically always smiling – a necessary survival skill with a sister like Kabirah. His claws were painted blue, and his jeans a little tighter than necessary. Luckily, he was cute, and he and I had been dating in secret for a few months. Nothing serious, I swear. Just hugging and kissing, that kind of stuff.

Everyone knew but our parents.

“Yeah,” Kabirah began, rolling her shoulders and grinning with her teeth. “so I can piledrive you after you break my brother’s ha-heart.” She glared up at me like I had kicked her in the tail. I was roughly the same height as her, but that didn’t feel like it would do me much good. Like I said, I was skinny for an addax. We both knew who would win in a fight.

“I want to get an earring to show that I’m taken, but mom will kill me if she finds out I’m dating. She’ll dig a hole and ground me in it,” Jaide lamented. I took his paw in my hoof and waited for Kabirah to lead us off. I knew better than to take point when a female hyena was around.

Sure enough, Kabirah led the way to the bus stop. The passing cars made me wish I had my own, but it would be another year before even the oldest of us, Kabirah, could get her license.

“Hang on, do we even have any money?” I asked, concealing my own luck.

Kabirah snorted, “This is Hyenahurst, Lyta, we’re not exactly rich. Did you get any?”

Jaide ducked down, parting with my hoof. “Hey, a quarter!”

“Well, we’re up a quarter.”

“I got some.” I grinned. I didn’t feel like smiling, but I knew I should with hyenas for friends. After I dropped my backpack on the ground and crouched over it, I reached in and pulled out a zipper top wallet with a floral design. “Allowance. I’ve been saving it. There’s like, twenty bucks in here.”

“Ha-great! That’s lunch!” Kabirah snort-laughed and grabbed the wallet out of my hoof. She poked her nose inside. “Hey, you keep your makeup right next to your cash? What if it leaks? Hoof polish is killer. Can’t believe you use that stuff. You’re just like Jaide and his claw polish.”

I frowned, but didn’t make a move. “Hey! That’s my wallet Kabirah! Paws off!”

Kabirah just laughed and threw her arm around Jaide’s shoulders. “Come on Lyta, I thought you were cool? You wanna be Leaf-Licker Lyta forever? You know how much harder it is for us hyenas. Consider this some charity.” Jaide, reflexively, began to laugh too. Hyenas always followed the social lead of the biggest female around. Unfortunately for me, that female had to be a hyena, too.

What was I supposed to do; break up one of my few friendships over twenty bucks, or treat my friends to lunch? I was at a loss for words for a moment, fuming. Kabirah always did stuff like this. The only thing I knew to do was break the tension with a giggle. So I did. I could see the two hyenas’ hackles go from full to half-mast, and I knew I had learned at least a few things about the hierarchy in my time in this part of town. Whew.

“You know I don’t really lick leaves. That’s really not even a good insult,” I said with a forced smile.

“Yeah? And I don’t make butter, but mammals still think I do.” Kabirah mumbled, fishing the cash out of my wallet.

My eyes widened. “You don’t? I thought...”

Kabirah shot me a glare that was so serious it cowed Jaide collaterally.

I covered my mouth and laughed. “I’m just kidding! Gosh, Kabirah, I’ve been living here my whole life, I’m not stupid.”

“Coulda fooled me, leafer.” Kabirah spat, and handed my wallet back to me.

Jaide cut in, “Can we not fight? We have enough trouble with the Brunsons. We’re friends, right? Really good friends.”

“Hnf.” Kabirah scoffed. “Strandee and Strandumb are too busy sucking dick to step to me. ‘Sides, I could take ‘em both. At once.” She flexed her biceps confidently and turned to continue toward the bus stop.

As usual, it was surrounded by stray trash and overstuffed with gazelle, hippo, rhino and a few ratels. I was pretty tall, roughly five feet not counting my horns, but I was nothing next to these guys. I wished they would build size-separate bus stops around here, but those were only in rich neighborhoods like Acorn Heights or pretty much anything close to the Palm. It was a pain when every seat was taken up—even worse when a rhino had three seats to herself.

“Ugh. I hate this neighborhood.” Jaide was a complainer.  "If I have to stand on the bus again I’m going to be so mad. You guys got your IDs?”

I reached into my bag without taking it off, knowing just what pocket I had put it in. My school ID, the one where I had braces—freshman year, the worst—and the school design emblazoned over my head. Hurst High, next to a silhouette of a desert wildflower.

“Got it.” I announced, showing it but hiding the picture.

“Great. Got ours, right Jaide?” Kabirah put her paws in Jaide’s pockets until she found them, slightly bent. Two laminated ID cards. Dabaehar, Kabirah, and Jaide. Jaide was used to Kabirah being handsy. Hell, I was dating him and I wasn’t that handsy.

“Hey, here comes the bus! We almost missed it.” I pointed, stamping a hoof down. If we hadn’t been arguing over my allowance…

“Lyta, you go first. Screw these rhinos, I want a front seat. Push, I’m right behind you. Come on Jaide.”

I nervously swiveled my ears, a habit. “Huh?” Before I knew it, Kabirah was shoving me forward toward the bus just as it parked and hissed a loud hydraulic burst. The door slid open and I struggled to climb the steps fast enough. Behind me, the larger mammals were already plodding forward, and there was liable to be gridlock if I wasn’t quick enough. Gridlock that could crush the wind out of me.

Kabirah pulled Jaide around her and shoved him forward until he was shoulder to shoulder with me. The bus driver, a lioness, didn’t even look as we waved our school IDs for the free ride.

The three of us slipped into the first open seat, right behind the driver. These were big seats, and comfortable too, but they didn’t have belts like a car. There were spots for smaller mammals here and there, but the really small ones had their own bus lines. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a mouse in this city. I’m five feet tall and even I feel like I’m going to get crushed half the time. You have to constantly be on the lookout. Worse yet, smaller mammals can be complete idiots on the sidewalks.

“Hey, Lyta.” Kabirah is staring at me from Jaide’s other side. She holds her paw out. “Gimme your cellphone?”

My cellphone was a Meowtorola, a really cool one where the keyboard slid out and you could text with it. Kabirah and Jaide didn’t have their own, citing the fact that their parents were getting government checks and used food stamps. Even though Kabirah could be a pushy bitch, I felt bad. The three of us more or less shared the phone. I pulled it out of the side pocket on my backpack, which I had set on my lap, and handed it to Kabirah. The back panel was covered in stickers for Jennifer Lapine and Gazelle.

Kabirah flipped it open while Jaide stared at it. “You gonna play Bedazzled? That’s so…” He cut himself off and snickered.

“What?” Kabirah snapped, pushing her nose forward into his. “Nothin’ wrong with Bedazzled. And no, I’m gonna text Simone and ask if she’s on her way. Bitch is late to everything. She’ll be late to her own funeral—hahaha!” Kabirah slapped her knee and got to texting, pricking at the large buttons with her claws. I had to get the hoof model; my fingers weren’t as delicate as a predator’s, but Kabirah didn’t seem to mind.

As we sat there, I leaned against the window. I could see the tan buildings pass by, and the way we were going, I got a great view of the skyscrapers of downtown Savanna Central. Hyenahurst was just a few miles away from them. Soon they slipped away from view as the bus lurched and turned toward Slot Street. I kinda wished we were going to S.C., but the best malls were near the Oasis. They were pricey, but you couldn’t beat the atmosphere. On Saturdays, we always got together to chill out next to one of the fountains or in a quiet spot where we could shoot the breeze and unwind after a long week of high school.

Being a junior was weird. Kabirah was a senior, so she had tests, she got to look at possible jobs, colleges. Meanwhile, her brother and I were stuck in limbo, going to classes but not having much direction. Jaide always said he wanted to get a job, maybe at one of the boutiques in the mall, but it was hard to balance that with school. I just tried to keep my grades above a C.

“Kabirah?” Jaide asked, fingers in his product-packed mane. He smelled like eucalyptus.

“Yeah?” Kabirah was jamming her fingers on the phone and didn’t look up.

“What are the SATs like?”

Kabirah stopped, turned to stare at me with a ‘can you believe this guy’ expression, and then turned back to Jaide. “You kiddin’ me? They’re garbage. Too hard, don’t do any good, they’re for smart prey who have the world ahead of them. ‘Sides, I got too much going on to study. Only way I’m gonna get out of flippin’ Bug Burgas is if I can get that wrestlin’ scholarship. Maybe I’ll go pro. MMA n’ shit.”

“MMA? You only know how to wrestle, those girls kick,” I said.

Kabirah closed my slide phone and handed it back to me. “Yeah, well, I can learn to kick later. Shut up, hoofer.”

I pulled the phone back open and took a look at the message history.

xxHORNGIRLxx: hey its Kabirah you gonna be there?

astrocanis: Yes. I’ll be there shortly. I’ve no intention of being late.

xxHORNGIRLxx: lol

xxHORNGIRLxx: ill believ it when I see it

xxHORNGIRLxx: hows ur friend

astrocanis: He’s coming home in a few days. I’m going to go visit him when he does.

xxHORNGIRLxx: cool tell him I said hey

xxHORNGIRLxx: ok see u in a bit

astrocanis: Likewise.

“Haha, she’s never going to be there on time. She’s probably ears deep in a book about uhh… you know. Whatever.” I knew what Simone liked: astronomy. But, I always played it a bit stupid around most of my friends. Overachieving prey are sort of a bad cliché around here.

“Hey, shut up, radio’s playing Stefawni.” Kabirah demanded. Sure enough, ‘It’s My Life’ was playing. It was a pretty good song, sure.

The bus was going to take about a half hour to get us to Agave street, our stop. By the time we were nearby, it had already begun to stink like sweat. Buses. You put a few dozen species together with all the scent and musk and expect them to just get along. It was possible, yeah, but it was hell on a girl’s nose. I had popped open the window, sliding it down the inch or two that it allowed, but that did little to mitigate the aroma of predator and prey mammals seated nearby.

The bus chimed and a feminine voice said ‘Agave Street’ with all the warmth of a computer screen. Jaide hopped into the aisle almost before the bus stopped moving, and the rhino in the seat on the other side knocked him over when he stood.

“Hey! Fucker!” Kabirah was standing on her seat to get closer to the rhino’s eye level. He was a big dude in a t-shirt and shorts, with sunglasses. His size didn’t stop Kabirah; she was trying to get in his face. “Watch where the fuck you’re going! Say you’re sorry to my bro or I’ll snap your horn off!”

The mammals behind the rhino were groaning in annoyance. As Jaide got to his feet, the lioness driver stood up, the lanyard around her neck jingling with all the keys on it. Everyone felt the bus’ engine turn off.

“Hey, I didn’t see him! You guys are too short, maybe you should get some stilts, huh?” The rhino laughed, waving his hand at Kabirah as if to shoo her away.

“Listen you two clods. I’ll put your pictures on my dashboard and hit the gas every time I see you at a stop if you don’t get off. Now.” The lioness was snarling, showing her teeth. She couldn’t help it. That kind of thing always made prey a little antsy, though. Some prey.

I watched Kabirah snort in her direction before pushing past her with Jaide in her arm. I hopped out of the seat and did my best to gallop out before the rhino moved forward and blocked me.

Kabirah was a few feet away on the sidewalk, cozied up to the outside of a building and checking her brother for bruises.

“He didn’t hit me that hard Kabirah, come on,” Jaide assured her. He looked okay. I turned my head and saw the rhino flip us off as he walked past. Ugh, what an asshole.

“Motherfucker. I’d knock him on his ass. Jaide, you don’t let prey push you around like that.”

“We’re not in Hyenahurst.” Jaide admitted, kicking the ground. “Lot more prey around the Palm.”

“Hey Lyta, you like being around your kind more?” Kabirah was pissed off or she wouldn’t be asking such a nasty question.

“You know I’m not like that. I love Hyenahurst. Er, parts of it.” I did love it. I grew up there. I was as much a native as Kabirah was. She had no right to call me out like that. “Come over here Jaide, you okay?”

Jade walked over and nodded. He slicked back his tousled mane. “Yeah. Thanks to Kabirah.”

“Hahaha, sure; your sister’s going to get all our butts kicked if she doesn’t learn how to let things go.” I was whispering and making sure Kabirah was looking off in the direction of the mall. She looked like she was ready to leave, and I didn’t want to piss her off anymore. “Hey, we going?” I asked her from behind. Her tail flit this way and that and she was quiet for a moment before she answered.

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

The difference between Hyenahurst and the area around the Oasis was glaring. Hyenahurst was nestled in a shady valley, close enough to Savannah Central for mammals to commute, but hardly a rich area. My parents worked at the Palm, so they did okay. Agave was by no means the Sahara Strip, but the buildings and shops still had all kinds of luxury apartments and designer goods stores. Once, on my fourteenth birthday, mom took me to Juicy Jaguar Couture and told me she’d buy me one thing. On sale, of course. I still hadn't even worn the dress because I was worried someone would rip it or steal it or something.

We were all used to it now. Hell, Agave was more our stomping ground than the tourists’, but the natives looked down their snouts at us because we obviously weren’t going to be spending a lot of money.

The Agave Town Mall was open air. Huge, sprawling, and carved out of a canyon. It had a lot of shaded seating areas. There were your typical clothing shops; Hoof Locker, Tommy Swillfigure, and then luxury shops like Molex and Preyda. The food court was the typical stuff you’d see at any mall, and that’s where we were headed.

The foodcourt had one of the best fountains around, and the three of us liked to hang out there whenever we came. We dipped our tails in the water and occasionally our feet, too. Lots of mammals did that. As we headed toward it, I couldn’t help but stare at the pricey shops to our sides. Jaide did the same; he always went all starry eyed at the idea of working in a designer clothing store. It was nice seeing him like that, but it didn’t seem like something to aspire to. I doubt a Preyda salesmammal would be any happier than someone selling stuff at a Mousey’s.

“Look at all this crap.” Kabirah laughed, pointing at the flouncy dresses in the windows. “Mammals actually wear this stuff?”

“Well, yeah. Just not you because you’re a hyena,” I said plainly.

Kabirah nodded. “Show me a girl hyena in a dress like that and I’ll show you a species traitor actin’ like our customs and culture are too good for her. Nowadays we got plenty of ‘em though, probably tryin’ to impress their prey boyfriends.”

Kabirah had a real stick up her ass about gender roles. Probably because she and Jaide conformed to them so well. I thought it was pretty stereotypical of them, but the truth was, it was plain uncommon to see ‘girly girl’ female hyenas and ‘butch’ males. There were a few things like that with Addax. For example, the oldest female tended to be the boss. In our family, my great aunt organized all the family gatherings and gave everyone their tasks around holidays.

“Hey,” I said to Jaide, causing him to whip his head around at me and smile.

“Yeah?”

“Pretty sure we’re far enough away from home to kiss again.”

We stopped right there as Kabirah walked on. Even though we were probably safe, both of us looked around and made sure we weren’t about to get trampled by an elephant before we pressed lips. We didn’t slobber on each other or anything, but I could see Jaide’s tail wagging when we continued walking.

Kabirah didn’t even notice that we had stopped, and by the time we were closer to her again, she was pointing at the fountain in the center of the food court. It was wide, and had benches all around it. Carvings of fish surrounded it, as if there were any fish in the desert.

“Holy shit, she’s actually on time.”

I followed her finger to who she was pointing at.

It was Simone, holy shit.

Like Kabirah had said, Simone was late to everything. But there she was, in a short skirt and a thin purple sweater-top that showed her bare shoulders and the straps of her black undershirt. The arms were a bit too long, and hid half her paws. With half her chest showing, you could see how her russet orange fur was broken by cream down her front, and by strips of orange fur around her neckline that looked like she was wearing a fluffy necklace. She was just sitting there, headphones in her ears and, of course, a book in her paw.

“Hey! Simone!” Kabirah yelled, waving her arms.

Simone’s large, triangular ears popped up and she slowly reached to remove her headphones. Her dark-tipped paintbrush of a tail wagged a little when she saw the three of us. She placed her book down in her lap, making sure to keep her page.

“Oh, hello everyone.” Simone smiled. “How are things?”

“Surprisingly early, haha!” Kabirah laughed as she sat next to Simone and showed her the twenty she had stolen from me. “Check it out. We’re getting lunch today, on Lyta.”

“Lunch? You know I prefer to eat alone. I suppose it’s okay this time.”

Jaide tittered nervously, as if he thought Simone was offended. “Sorry, I guess we were too excited about hanging out. I forgot you—“

Kabirah cut him off, “You’re weird. Like, who has friends and then goes off at lunch to eat by herself? We have a perfect spot behind the library and you’re always nowhere to be found.”

“I eat in my science class. The teacher and I talk sometimes.”

I sat down next to Kabirah and Jaide and laughed too. “You hang? With a teacher? You’re such a nerd.” I felt dumb saying that. I had gotten two As, three Bs, and a C last year. Sure, it seemed good, but mom and dad still yelled at me for the C. As far as I knew, Simone had straight As and was taking AP classes.

“If you insist. Say, I was just reading some Carl Sagaur. Did you know that black holes are not radioactive? The material in their accretion disk is—“

“Oh my god, no, it’s Saturday, no. You want to talk about that, talk to your science teacher. Right Lyta?” Kabirah turned to me.

I stuttered for a second before blurting out. “Yeah, totally don’t want to hear about that.” It was a little interesting, I thought.

“Anyway, I’m starving. What do you wanna do? Bugs? Maybe splurge for some fish and chips? Oh, I forgot, Lyta doesn’t eat that stuff. Hey Lyta, sorry, but I don’t want any grass today. Gets stuck in my teeth.” Kabirah smiled wide, showing her fangs.

Simone shrugged. “Whatever you want. I’d like some ice cream. I brought some money too.”

I exhaled a sigh of relief. I was wondering how the hell twenty bucks was going to cover lunch for four mammals.

“Jaide?” Kabirah asked, patting him on the back. “You want Bug Burga or McDonkey’s?”

“Bug Burga. Hey, Lyta, we can get you a veggie patty or something.”

“And a medium cola? Oh, and some sweet potato fries?” I loved those sweet potato fries.

“Yeah sure. Stay here.” Kabirah and Jaide trotted off, and Simone stood up a second later.

“Lyta. I’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to get something sweet.”

Sure enough, Simone headed in the direction of the Högen-Dazs on the other side of the food court. How exactly did she stay so skinny?

I’m not sure I had ever seen her eating a meal—it was always ice cream or froyo or something.

It took what felt like forever for everyone to come back, I watched the lines as they got longer and longer. Sadly, we hadn’t beat the rush. By the time we were all together again, it was nearly two o’clock.

“Sorry Lyta, they were out of veggie burgers. But, we got you some fries.” Jaide looked truly apologetic as he passed me the small bag of fries. Kabirah sat down next to him and pulled out a double Bug Burga with extra fly sauce. Jaide had a single. As we started eating, Simone came back, licking two scoops of ice cream on a chocolate-dipped cone.

“That’s your lunch? Kabirah cackled, and Jaide and I followed suit. “That’s what powers all those brain cells?”

Simone smiled calmly. “Yes. It’s quite good. How are your burgers?”

“Fine.” Kabirah muttered, her mouth full.

We sat there eating and chit chatting for a while. As it got later in the afternoon, it got hotter, and we all dipped our legs into the fountain’s cool water. Simone was telling us about some boy she might have a crush on—she wasn’t sure—and Kabirah kept telling her she didn’t care and that she should just go for it if she liked him so much. Jaide asked all kinds of details. Apparently, the guy was a senior, another Ethiopian wolf like Simone. He was on the track team and had ‘attractive hindquarters’ according to her.

When we had finished eating, I balled up all the wrappers and walked them over to the trash can. I stopped, looking into the window of a bath and body store. There was another addax in there, some lady at the counter, and she looked miserable. She looked like she was falling asleep. Was that going to be me in a few years?

No way. I’m going to college.

It felt good to say it, even in my head. It reaffirmed my goal, even if I wasn’t sure of the exact details yet. I headed back over to the fountain only to see Kabirah standing up and barking in a pissed-off tone at two—oh hell.

The Brunsons.

Elias and Yosef were twins, at least that’s what they told everyone. Two scruffy brown hyenas that didn't look anything alike. They were a bit smaller than me and Kabirah, but they were tough. They bragged just as much, usually about being in a gang. Hyenahurst was full of them, and the cops only really got involved when turf spats spilled over into Savanna Central. I’m not sure I believed them, because I never really saw them outside of school. They had a tendency to pick fights with Kabirah, probably just because she was one of the toughest girls in school.

“So, yeah, all I’m saying is you’re screwed. What are you even doing here? Can you even afford anything? Or are you just drinking the water, huh?” Josef snarled. His brother grinned and patted him on the back, staring expectantly at Kabirah.

Kabirah was standing up, bent forward to emphasize her height advantage. “The fuck do you know?” She asked, expression a mix of pissed and incredulous. “Fuckin’ strands. You’re not even real hyenas. The fuck you even doin’ in Hyenahurst?”

Josef made a face; she had a point. “We got connections, what do you got? Your pussy of a brother? Your prey friends? Can’t believe you hang with prey. Herds are for nerds, remember?”

Jaide stood up and tugged Kabirah’s tail gently. “Hey, Kabby, don’t let them get to you, this is stupid. Let’s go somewhere else, okay?” He was giggling under his breath, looking really nervous. His ears were down and his fur was all prickled up. I hated him seeing like that.

Meanwhile, Simone was trying not to get involved. She had stuffed her nose back into her book, and, actually, I wondered if she even knew there was any fighting going on.

Elias spit on the ground. He scratched a footclaw near it. I really hated these two. If they were in a gang, the benefits were obvious. They were always wearing nice stuff, like Pucci shorts and polos. Sometimes they even had sandals for when the pavement got really hot.

And I mean nice ones. I, of course, didn’t give a damn about hot pavement with my hooves.

“Woah, woah.” I said, sidling up to a few feet away, between them. “Can’t you chill? We’re just trying to relax. It’s Saturday, you guys can fight in school.”

“Go chew some cud, hoofer.” Josef barked, saliva flicking from his jaws as he bared his teeth at me.

Unbelievable.

Hey!” Kabirah yelled.

It happened too fast to see. Fists started to fly in every direction between Kabirah and Josef, and a second later Elias was on her too. They liked to team up to make up for their lack of height. They were roaring, barking and snapping, laying into each other like I’ve never seen. Fur flew off. Me, Jaide, and Simone were just standing there staring at them, totally unsure of what to do. I wanted to jump in, and I was about to. I knew better than to use my horns—too dangerous—so instead I get ready to ram those two jerks with my shoulders. Jaide couldn’t stop laughing, he was clutching his stomach he was laughing so hard. I didn’t think it was funny at all, but I start to snicker a little too.

“Hey! Hey!” A high-pitched whistle sounded. I could practically feel the ground shaking as the guy plodded up. An elephant. Mall cop.

He was in one of those black and white suits that screamed ‘not a real cop’ and he looked like he had about two seconds of patience left. He walked right up and shoved his hand in between the three mammals, pushing them apart so roughly they fell on their asses.

“Who started this?” He bellowed. We all exchanged looks with each other except Kabirah. She dropped her head and started running for the mall entrance, out toward Agave street.

“Book it!” She yelled over her shoulder.

Jaide followed, and I stood there stammering for a second, trying to catch my breath. My heart was beating in my ears. I could only imagine how Kabirah and Jaide felt. I looked up at the elephant for a second as if to say ‘sorry, dude’ and took off galloping. Didn’t even look back to see if the Brunsons ran too. I hope they didn’t. I hope they got picked up and tossed in fanghead jail.

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be throwing around a word like fanghead when most of my friends are preds.

I could see Jaide’s ass when I came running out of the mall. There was yelping and shouting. Kabirah must have been pushing past mammals ahead. Sure enough, I saw a tiger and a few gazelles looking down the sidewalk and glowering. I heard a ‘Hell’s wrong with her?’ or two as I jogged by, trying to keep out of the way.

Kabirah was up ahead at the bus stop, hiding on the opposite side from the direction of the mall. Jaide was there next to her, fitfully checking out her wounds. She looked bad, like she had actually been hit and scratched a few times. I didn’t remember the last time I had seen her like that.

“Hey, Kabirah… You… You gonna be okay?”

Kabirah grunted. She was still panting, her chest heaving up and down. She rubbed her neck with an outstretched paw. “Double teamin’ fucks. I’m gonna kill ‘em next time I see ‘em.”

“Calm down Kabirah, they were just being rude, you don’t need to talk about killing or anything.” Jaide was doing his best to talk her down. It was really sweet of him, because it was obvious she was hurting. Still, judging by the scowl on her muzzle I couldn’t tell whether it was her body or her pride that took the harder hits.

Shit. Simone.

I yanked my phone out of my bag and slid it open.

xxHORNGIRLxx: hey! Simone did u run?

astrocanis: No. I was not involved.

xxHORNGIRLxx: So ur okay?

astrocanis: I’m fine. I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk more. Is Kabirah okay?

xxHORNGIRLxx I think so. She’s pissed but u know her. See u monday?

astrocanis: See you in Science.

Well, that’s one thing out of the way.

I stood there for a second, unsure of what to say. The familiar sound of the bus approached moments later, and Kabirah bolted in the second the door opened. This time, she went all the way to the back and picked a seat obscured by two hippos sitting next to each other and talking loudly.

“Hey.” I said as I sat down next to her. Jaide sat down next to me and let his head gently rest on my shoulder. “Sorry. I think I egged ‘em on, heh…”

“Psssh. They had all the eggs they could carry.” That wasn’t very funny, but Jaide snorted. I knew enough to realize he was scared as hell, and he had been near-panicking back during the fight. Poor guy; his big sister was the world to him.

“You’re bleeding a little bit. Hey, I got some cloth in my bag.” I did. I pulled it out; a blue rag I got wet in summer and would put on my head to cool off when the sun was at its highest point. I handed Kabirah the cloth and she took it. Slowly, the view out the window got less and less affluent, and before we knew it we were back in Hyenahurst. We hopped off the bus, amidst a flood of a few other mammals who stared at us like we’re troublemakers. Guess we were.

“I’m gonna head home. Bye Leaf-licker. Oh, and thanks for lunch.” Kabirah elbowed me in the ribs and started to limp off. Jaide hugged me and jogged after her, and when he got close he let her lean against him. I walked home alone in the other direction.

I tried to look at the bright side.

At least I would be home before dinner.

 

* * *

 

Bonus image by [Flakjackal](https://flakjackal.tumblr.com/)


	2. Drive Me Crazy

Algebra 2. One of the most terrible phrases you can say to a teenager. I never had a mind for math—I was always more interested in English, and yeah, I was one of those girls who always had a few books in her bag. I already had glasses, so I tried to hide my reading habits to fit in with a crowd that didn’t much like them. There I was, sitting in Algebra 2 and craning my neck up to listen to the teacher, a giraffe. He did problems on the board without stopping to check if we understood them, and by my estimate, half the class might as well have been studying the mating patterns of field crickets for all the sense it made to them.

Unfortunately, I was in that half.

I tended to focus on the homework more than the class. In class, I spaced out. I had a Mead notebook that I would doodle in, and occasionally I wrote poetry. I loved writing. The English teacher, Ms. Bassatt, encouraged me, saying I had a knack for it. Still, I didn’t want to be the girl who wrote poetry, so I didn’t often share it with her. Or anyone for that matter. Half my math notebook was filled with the stuff and I had never even typed it up on my computer for safe keeping.

“Laurillard… Lyta. Lyta?” It was the teacher. Mr Masai was craning his neck down and looking at me expectantly.

I sat there for a second longer before realizing what was going on. “Um… Yeah?”

The class was guffawing around me. I looked up at the unsolvable hieroglyph on the board.

“Ms. Laurillard, can you solve this one for me? Come up to the board please.”

I broke into a cold sweat in the air-conditioned classroom. ‘Here we go.’ I thought to myself.

The board seemed miles away, but to my dismay I reached it sooner than I expected. I reached down to pick up a marker and rolled it in my fingers a few times.

“Okay, so…” I began to try and talk through it, but my mind was blanking. I had been thinking about something completely different, and I couldn’t begin to solve an equation I hadn’t even had time to read.

I had been thinking about writing.

Okay, and maybe lunch.

My classmates were starting to pack up their backpacks, and the noise carried to me. I raised my eyebrows in surprise and looked at the clock.

Oh, hey!

The lunch bell rang, and before the sound even stopped, half the class was out of the room.

Mr. Masai sighed. “You’re excused, Lyta. Please try and follow along with the rest of us next time, alright?”

“Sorry—yeah I will!” I wasn’t sure about that. What I was sure about was that I was starving. I grabbed my bag, slung it over one shoulder, and waited for a hippo to squeeze through the door before letting myself out.

Hurst High was the school everyone went to, unless you wanted an easy road to a future. Then you went to one of the private schools in the East Sahara. Near the beaches. But no, Hurst High was in the Hyenahurst Valley, and it wasn’t exactly the best high school in Zootopia.

It was an open-air campus, which meant that when class let out, you sometimes had to run across the way—and avoid getting trampled or trampling someone—to make it to your next class on time. It was also pretty damn hot in summer. Heat was our habitat, or so I had heard dad say. The buildings had been painted this ugly brown with some wood siding that made it look completely out of place in the desert. Everyone I knew called Hurst High ‘The Shacks’ for its resemblance to a bunch of shoddy wooden shacks one day away from crumbling into bark cereal.

I had to cross the campus to get to the cafeteria, so I did what I did every day and started hoofing it. The problem with lunch time was that it always caused huge traffic jams. I was standing behind a rhino when an elephant pushed up next to me. I saw him start to take a step, and then noticed Richard underfoot.

“Rich! Hey!” I ducked down and scooped him up in my arms. He thrashed and let out a spine-tingling whistle for a second before realizing what was happening.

“Oh! Hi Lyta!” His cheerful demeanor was infectious. Richard was a dik dik, and he had it hard. Not as hard as mice and voles and other tiny mammals, but this guy was only about one third my height. My backpack probably weighed more than him. Despite that, he never seemed to be down because of it.

“Hi Rich, you gotta look where you’re going. You almost got stomped.”

“Happens every day. Good thing I got the horns. Lion was gonna step on me the other day, he pricked his paw and jumped ten feet.”

I cackled like a hyena. “Hey, I got your back! We ungulates have to stick together. I mean, we cool ungulates.” More than half the student body were prey, but that didn’t mean I got along with them any better than predators. Richard was a special case though. Really cool guy, really chill. He skateboarded a lot outside of class and though the skatepark off Dry River Road wasn’t my normal hangout, I had seen him do some pretty impressive stuff a few times. “Are you headed to the cafeteria?”

Rich shook his head. “Nah, I was gonna go off campus.”

“Oh! Okay. Well, where do you want me to put you down?” I laughed again, fully aware that there were small mammals who would have been offended beyond belief at the prospect of being carried around by a larger mammal.

“Uhhh, other side of the quad? By the science classes.”

“You sure? I thought that was on the far side from the street.”

“I know a short-cut.” He caught himself grinning. “Hey, Lyta, don’t laugh at that, that’s a sacred joke of my species.”

I pulled my lips back, fighting a chuckle. “Me? Laugh? No no, I’m filled with the utmost respect.”

Wading through the slow-motion stampede of mammals took a little effort, but Rich and I finally made it to the science buildings. Conveniently, the cafeteria was right up ahead. I set Rich down on one of the patches of grass and waved as he headed off in the opposite direction. When I got to the cafeteria, I ordered my usual – a beet salad and one of the create your own smoothies. I chose sweet succulents, mango, and blueberry. I carried my tray out of the noisy dining hall into the open air, where I made my way behind the school library to sit in the shade with my friends.

The library was only one story, like every building on campus barring the drama building and the auditoriums. Behind it was a good- sized paved area, flat as a textbook. It was right next to the high school farm, so occasionally there would be desert agriculture classes taught out there. A big tree sat in the middle of the pavement, and all around the tree were benches facing each other in a big square. I saw Kabirah and Jaide sitting on one of the benches, talking about something or another.

“Hey guys!” I called as I approached.

Jaide’s head popped up. He sucked some soda out of a straw and waved.

“Get stuck in traffic, hoofer?” Kabirah said through a mouthful of generic cafeteria insect burger.

“Yeah, seemed really bad today. Talked to a friend a little bit and then I came right here.”

Jaide patted the spot next to him, and I sat myself down there with my leg against his. We liked to have small bits of closeness where we could, but we weren’t exactly the ‘snout-suck in public’ kind of couple.

I started on my salad.

“Uhhh, where was I…” Kabirah thought aloud, rubbing her mane. “Oh yeah! So P.E. The only class I get an A in, hahaha. We were doing football, guys and girls. Coach puts me on the team with the guys in my size range, because the girls would pitch a fit if they had to play with me. I mean, standard, right? Girl hyenas go on the boy’s team. There are five of us girls, and we’re just killing the boy team. Couple wildebeest guys, a lion, and a camel. It was hilarious, because these guys are bigger than us. But they aren’t faster and they sure as hell aren’t smarter.”

Snorting, I swallowed a mouthful of my salad. “Kabirah, you’ve got stories like this every day. I still can’t believe you didn’t ask to sit P.E. out considering what those two strands tried to pull the other day.”

Kabirah waved her paw. You could still see where she had been hurt that Saturday “Yeah yeah. Fur wounds. Jaide, how was woodshop?”

Jaide smiled earnestly, looking between me and Kabirah. “I think I’m getting the hang of it. I’m making a mail caddy for mom and dad to hold all those forms from the city and stuff.”

“Aw, Jaide, that’s really sweet.” I commented, reaching up to gently tweak his ear. He looked a little bashful, which was of course, cute as all get out.

“Did you walk to school today?” Kabirah asked, taking a bite of out of one of the school’s bargain bug burga lookalikes sitting on her tray.

“Yeah. I usually do. Why?”

“So did we. Bus stopped doing the student ID thing.”

Unbelievable. That meant no more weekends at the mall. Hell, it meant no more independence whatsoever. We’d have to beg our parents for rides, and that meant instant chaperone. Not something any of us wanted.

“What are we gonna do? By summer it’ll be too hot to walk anywhere. A few more months and bam, we’ll be stranded, unless we want our feet to melt on the asphalt.

“This guy in one of my classes got a car.” Kabirah grunted angrily.

Fat lot of good that did us.

“Oh, yeah, lots of seniors have cars. The Strands have a car. Too bad we’re only friends with you.” I teased her, elbowing Jaide to get him in on the joke. Kabirah shot me a look, but it faded into a smirk.

“One of us has gotta get a license soon. Lyta, are you in driver’s ed yet?”

I laughed dismissively, “Even if I got a hundred percent on the exam I’d never be able to use my parents’ cars. Maybe on a weekend. Maybe. But I’d be walking during the week even after all that work.”

“Ugh. Can’t even get out of the Square. Guess we can try to take the rail… I’m getting so tired of the mall lately.” Kabirah added.

Jaide shook his head. “We can’t afford to ride the rail. Not unless one of us gets a job…” He trailed off. Poor guy, he must have really wanted that mall gig.

I wondered if Kabirah was tired of the mall, or if she just had a stick in her craw because of those asshole strands the other day. I had to admit, I was getting tired of doing the same stuff every weekend. Here we were, in one of the most populous cities in the world, and we were at a loss for what to do. Doing things costed money we didn’t have.

As I sucked on my straw, I felt a buzz in my pocket. It took me a minute to put down my smoothie and get my phone out.

astrocanis: Hello Lyta. Are you still coming over tonight?

xxHORNGIRLxx: yep, be there @ 6!

astrocanis: See you then.

“Ugh, there’s Les.” Kabirah grumbled.

Les. Awkward, bashful, and just plain peculiar. Les was a big guy; a white-tailed deer. He was a little taller than I was, and it always kind of annoyed me that he looked like a photo negative of me. He had rich brown fur with a white ring around his nose, while I had white fur with a dark forehead. His horns were thicker and kind of short. Looks aside, Les was always a little weird. He just didn’t talk much. He would come around, sit near you, and not even say hello until you said it to him. Mostly, the school just passed around rumors about him.

There was the one about him being a transfer student from an insane asylum. I guess he had come in mid-year at some point. I remember one group of kids were saying he was always blazed out of his mind, but I thought we would have been able to smell that. Finally, and this was my personal theory: he had some kind of crazy illness that meant he had been home-schooled, so he was as socially awkward as a narcoleptic sloth.

Whatever the truth was, he got on mammals’ nerves. Kabirah included. He was about to sit down on a bench nearby, but Kabirah paced around us and jumped up onto it. She sat on the back with her paws on the seat.

“Sorry bud, I was sitting here.” She faked an apology.

Les tilted his head. He was holding a tray of food, a smoothie and a salad just like me. Hoofer-standard, as Kabirah and some of the snootier preds called it. I was about to say something, but he started to move around to the other side of the bench. We all stared at him, even the kids on the other side of the tree were giving him an eyeful.

“Woah, sorry Les. Afraid I need the whole bench for my lunch workout.” Kabirah insisted, blocking his attempt to sit down. I heard some laughter, first from the spectators, and then from Jaide next to me. The laughter turned to gasps as Les tried to sit down. As he did, Kabirah made a show of doing some kind of pushup squat exercise on the bench. As she rose up, she knocked Les’ tray with her knee, spilling his food on him and the ground. He looked absolutely stunned.

“Kabirah, come on!” I shouted, getting to my hooves. “Jaide, tell your sister to keep her paws to herself.” I looked over my shoulder at Jaide, who made a face like I had just asked him to walk into downtown traffic.

“Psh, whatever. I didn’t mean it. You don’t want him spying on us anyway, do you?”

I threw my hooves up in the air. This was just like Kabirah. “Maybe not, but that was a shitty thing to do. Hey, Les—“ I started to walk over to him, taking my rag out of my pocket.

Les just balked at me when I near him. He was still holding the empty tray, and smoothie sloughed down his Llamapalooza t-shirt. All around us, the jeering laughter of our fellow students could be heard. I saw his ears fall as we looked at each other, and I could tell he was fighting the urge to cry. He turned his head away from me and started to walk back toward the cafeteria.

“I just want to—“ I started after him.

“Just don’t.” He said solemnly. He didn’t stop walking. He shuffled off and the laughter died as he left.

Fuming, I whipped back around to Kabirah. “Well, I guess you got your jollies, didn’t you?” I shouted at her. The high school crowd gave us an ‘ooh’ like we were arguing on a sitcom. I caught Jaide out of the corner of my eye, worried and up on his feet like he was ready to jump between us at any moment.

“He’s a problem. I solved it. You wanna tolerate him creepin’ on us all the time?”

“I—you could have done it differently. You could have said something instead of acting like a cub.”

“Lyta…” I heard Jaide’s voice behind me. Soft, soothing, but with an undercurrent of anxiety.

Kabirah climbed off the bench and stood up, puffing her chest out. She exhaled through her nose and pitched a snarl at me with those sharp-ass teeth of hers.

“You’re a hoofer. You may be the closest hoofer to a hyena I ever met, but at the end of the day, you’re a hoofer. If you wanna side with another hoofer ‘cuz you think you’re better than us preds, then why don’t you go eat lunch with that creep?”

“Dammit, Kabirah, I don’t think I’m better than anyone.”

“I have my doubts. Come on Jaide. ‘Bout time I walk you to class.” Kabirah walked toward Jaide, holding out her paw. He took it and looked back at me as they walked away. I bit my lip as he mouthed ‘sorry’ and then turned his back to me.

All that excitement and I barely got to finish my lunch.

The bell rang, and campus again became a great migration.

That afternoon, I walked home alone. Normally I went with Kabirah and Jaide, but I felt the bad vibes between us. The three of us had been fast friends since Junior High, but after today I think we all wanted a bit of distance. It was likely that if Kabirah didn’t want to hang with me anymore, I would no longer be dating Jaide either. I didn’t even see them walking home. It was just me and my back pack. Without someone to talk to, the walk home was plain boring. I pulled out my cellphone and gave my messages a look.

There was one from mom, sent a few minutes ago:

BLaurillard: Ly, have you seen your father’s red tie?

xxHORNGIRLxx: nope. try looking near his other ties.

One from Rich:

dik2: yo Lyta can we talk 2morow/

They didn’t exactly make cellphones in Rich’s size. He was too big to use a mouse model and too small to use one like mine. Still, he made due with a medium model that had a different keyboard than the one I had. The result? A whole lot of typos.

xxHORNGIRLxx: sure rich. lets do lunch lol

It was a nice day for a walk, at least. The traffic wasn’t too congested, and I could see the cacti blooming in mammals’ window planters. As was typical around this time of day, the valley’s high hills were throwing everything into shade. A PUPS truck rumbled by, the lycaon driver leaning his head out the open door to catch some breeze in his mouth. I wondered if he was going to bring that new vacuum mom had ordered. Yeah, things were loose, and as I put my cellphone back into my bag’s side pocket I considered how much of a waste it would be to spend a nice afternoon like this indoors doing homework.

On the other hoof, if I didn’t come home, mom would never let me hear the end of it. Dad, I think, would have given me some of that ‘don’t tell your mother’ approval. He was always cool like that, when he was home. The Palm was often so busy that he would have to stay late, so it would just be me and mom for dinner. That was okay, though. Dad was a great guy and unlike most teenagers, I actually appreciated the work he put in for us.

As far as I knew, he had been working at The Palm for a decade. We moved to Hyenahurst about twelve years ago, and since it was such a cheap area, we were able to get a nicer house. At least, that’s what my parents told me. A lot of mammals I knew had their parents working more than one job each just to make ends meet, because the opportunities in the area were so pathetic. Convenience store clerk, fast-food service… I wanted the extra spending money—everyone in high school did—but so far, no one I knew had managed to get an after-school job. Jaide had been applying at the mall too, even after we told him he’d spend his life commuting on the bus if he got a job there.

When I turned my key in the lock at our front door, I hung back a moment. Something was off. There was a note attached the door.

CHECK SIDE ->

I put my hooves on the stone banister of our stairs and peeked over the side at the little front garden where my mom liked to plant lilies.

There it was, a tall brown box that looked heavy enough. I grabbed it by the sides and pulled it up and over. There was a picture of the vacuum on the side, a model with a trunk-like hose and a large basin for collecting dust. I pushed the door open and retrieved the key from the lock before dragging the box inside.

I opened it there on the floor, unpacking the peanuts and unwrapping the plastic. All in all, the thing looked pretty good. Way better than the clunky old one we sitting in the closet. Mom had been waiting all week to vacuum with it, and the dust had started to get to me. What better way to prove myself as a loving and responsible daughter than to vacuum the house without being asked before mom got home?

Here’s the thing about vacuuming that I didn’t want mom to know—it was kind of awesome. Okay, let me back up, Picture this. You’re in capris and a blouse, you put some Felicia Keys on your phone and listen with headphones while the vacuum blares away. Then, you dance.

Dancing while vacuuming was underappreciated. See, my mom saw it as work when she did it, but that’s because she wasn’t going about it the right way. I’m sure if she put on some of her Fleetwook Yak or whatever and moved her hooves to the beat while pushing the vacuum around, she’d see it my way. That aside, I was well on my way to some serious “good kid” cred.

Mom came home about an hour after I finished vacuuming the entire house and knocking out a few pages of homework. She had her purse slung over her shoulder and was still wearing her dark skirt-suit. The frilly, pastel pink ruffled blouse under her coat was the kind of top I wanted to wear to a fancy adult job someday. As she came in, she immediately noticed something was off, and as I looked up from my seat on the couch, I saw a smile spread across her snout.

“Lyta! It looks like you’ve been busy. The new vacuum came?”

“Yes, it’s in the closet with the other one right now. Worked like a charm. How was work, mom?”

Mom walked over to the couch and sat down next to me. Her body was warm, and she leaned back with a sigh, brushing against me as she ran her fingers up the dark patch of fur between her horns.

“Arduous. The staff wasn’t taking direction very well today, so I had to field some complaints at the concierge. Your father was called off his lunch while we were eating to deal with some investor issue. Someone was backing out of some deal. We’ve got that electronics trade show coming next week and I think everyone is just a little over stressed at all the overbooking.”

Mom had closed her eyes and was stroking one of her ears automatically. She often did this when she was thinking deeply, or distracted by her thoughts.

I gave her some time to decompress before I pushed my homework into a folder.

“Well, I can take some stress off you tonight, mom. I’m going to Simone’s for dinner, remember? So you can have the place to yourself. Dad too, if he gets home.”

Mom folded her arms under her chest and started to smirk. “All to myself? I’ll be at a loss for what to do.” She laughed a bit at herself as she watched me stand up. “That Simone girl. What’s her last name?”

“Hawaxa.” I said, gathering up my backpack and putting my phone and notebooks back inside.

“Ah, yes. Her mother works at the grocery store. I think she’s a good student, isn’t she? Maybe she can put you on the right track.”

“Mom, it was one C.”

Mom turned her head away, the hint of a coy smile on her lips, and gave me the side eye. “The last C you’ll ever have, so help me.”

“Oh my god, whatever mom. It was last year. I’m going to go to Simone’s, okay?”

Mom was still on the couch when I turned around, and she was already undoing the handkerchief around her neck and sliding off her blazer.

“Take your time getting home. And call me before you leave so I know when you’ll get back in.”

“Sure, mom.” I said, bolting out the door. It was half past five, and if I lagged any longer Simone would wonder where I was. Not that she had a good sense of time, given how late she was to everything.

The walk to Simone’s place was relaxing. Simone lived a few blocks away to the north, closer to the stores. I followed a group of wildebeest across a sidewalk, noticing how they blocked traffic even after the light had turned red. Oh well. Helped me get there faster.

It was getting real dark by the time I got to Simone’s. The house’s lights were all on, and I knocked on the door in the darkness of the unlit front area, tucked into this little closet-like chamber. It was always awkward standing there. Soon enough, the outside light popped on and Simone’s dad answered the door.

“Hi, Mr. Haxawa. I was supposed to do homework with Simone tonight?”

Simone’s dad was a tough looking wolf. I think he worked in a warehouse or on the docks or something. It took a second for him to recognize me before he threw his head to the right and shouted.

“Simmy! Your pal’s here! Come on in dear.” He moved aside and waved me in, closing the door behind him.

I could smell the bugs cooking in the kitchen from the doorstep. Inside, it was that much stronger. Simone came out of the back, her paws making an obvious plodding sort of sound on the carpet. She took my hand without even saying hello and led me back down the hallway, past pictures of her family on the beach and a small seating area where a family computer had been set up.

“Um, your mom knows I don’t eat bugs, right?” I said as Simone pushed me into her room and closed the door behind her.

Simone had interesting tastes. Her room still had those glow-in-the-dark star and planets on the ceiling that I thought kids grew out of, and posters on the walls for observatories and astronomy “fun facts.” Her bed was messy, and she had a desktop with one of those big clunky monitors on a desk on the side of the room, next to a shelf full of well-read books.

“Yes. She’s making some vegetable stew. Can we sit down?” Simone went to her desk and rotated the chair around before taking a seat. I dropped my backpack and collapsed on a bean bag in an unoccupied corner of the room.

“What’s up? I already did most of my homework so if you want we can watch TV inst—“

“There’s a boy.”

I stopped. Simone looked at me expectantly.

“Uhhh, yeah, I know. The other wolf guy, right? What’s going on with him?”

Simone rubbed her arm. She had on a fuzzy sweater that hung halfway down her shoulders, doubtless in preparation for the cold desert night. Her skirt went down to her knees, the hint of her pear-shaped lower half beneath the light fabric.

“…I don’t like him. I like someone else.” She admitted.

My eyebrows couldn’t help but knit. “But you couldn’t shut up about him. What, did he get the order of the planets wrong or something?”

Simone shook her head. “No, Lyta. It’s complicated. Maybe… I shouldn’t tell you. We can watch TV instead. How about That’s So Reindeer?”

“No, come on Simone. Tell me. Who’s the lucky guy? Who gets to date the girl who not only has her head in the clouds, but in the upper atmosphere?” I couldn’t help it, Simone was too funny sometimes. She usually took teasing well, but this time I could tell it wasn’t getting me anywhere.

After a moment of awkward silence, she answered. “He’s really handsome. He has such a kind personality, and even though we don’t talk much…”

Simone’s door opened. Her mom was there with a plank tray with both of our dinners on it. A steaming bowl of stew and a heaping plate of frightening-looking fried crickets.

“Sorry I took so long. Lyta, would you like to take your meal elsewhere?” Simone’s mom asked helpfully.

I shrugged, “Actually, I don’t mind eating with other mammals. Thanks though.” I glanced to Simone, and noticed that she had spun her chair back around and turned on her computer. Was she trying to avoid her mom?

The second her mom left and closed the door, Simone called me over. Her tail was swishing his way and that behind her seat.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go on his MyPlace.” She said, a twinge of apprehension battling with a twinge of excitement in her voice.

“Okay, sure. If it’ll get you to show me who he is.” I replied, folding my arms on the back of her chair and looking over her shoulder. I watched as she clicked through to MyPlace and typed in a name. A name I wasn’t expecting to see. A name I had to read twice. Then, when his picture popped up, I was speechless.

“His name’s Richard.”

Simone had a crush on Rich, the dik dik I knew well enough from brief interactions and having him in some classes last year. He was perfectly fine, but I couldn’t imagine dating a guy a third my size.

“He’s in my science class.” Simone added, leaning on her elbow and staring at his pictures. He was smiling and waving in his profile photo, and below it he had a list of hobbies including jogging and watching movies. I never really thought of him as being dateable. He was just one of those guys you have a nice chat with. I wondered if I had mentally passed him over because he was so much shorter than me. Then here was Simone, ogling his horns. I guess they looked okay.

“Well? What do you think?”

“Uhhh, Simone, I know this guy, we’ve had some classes together. He’s really relaxed, but I wouldn’t call him buck of the year.”

Simone gaped like she couldn’t comprehend what I had said, and considering how smart she was, that was surprising.

“Y-you don’t think he’s… attractive?”

“Not really. Besides, I’m dating Jaide.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I just thought, because you’re a prey…”

“A prey dating a predator, yeah. So?”

“So… More for me, I guess.”

I laughed, clapping her shoulder. “Simone has a crush on a prey! Amazing! Stop the presses!”

Simone hunched over. “Be quiet Lyta!” She barked in a hushed tone, putting her paw on my snout.

“Fine.” I relented, lowering my voice. “Are you going to ask him out? Hey, I’m friendly with him, I could tell him you like him.”

Simone had already started clicking through his pictures. “Oh, no, there’s no need for that. I’ll… ask him in due time.”

“Alright. Picturing you two together is a little hard.” I snickered, imagining her carrying him around like a little cub. “Do you even think his c—“

Simone was visibly flustered, the visible skin in her ears flushing red. “Stop it, Lyta!” She caught me before I finished the word, and turned her chair around. She picked up the tray her mother had left us and set it on the desk.

“We should eat. Then we can talk about, um, anything but that. Okay?”

“Okay, Simone. Swear.”

For another hour, we talked and ate dinner. Simone seemed like she had a weight lifted off her shoulders by telling me about Rich, but I wasn’t sure why she had hidden it from Kabirah and Jaide. Oh well. She made me promise not to tell them before I left for the night, walking back to my house in the dark streets of the Hyenahurst valley while the lights of passing cars flickered by.

Halfway down the street from Simone’s house, I remembered my mom’s request. Dutifully, I tried to call her. I stood there holding the phone with one hoof and my ear to my head with the other. It was still hard to hear over the din of passing cars, but all I could make out was a busy signal, so I hung up.

When I got home, I could hear laughing coming from inside the house. There was mom, sitting in front of the TV with a glass of wine.

“Mom?” I put my backpack by the door and walked over to see what she was watching. Some fox doing stand-up.

“Ohhh, Lyta! You were supposed to call.” She said, admonishing me with a huge smile on her face. Her eyes were lit up, and she looked halfway done with a bottle on the table. I was about to comment, but the doorbell rang. Mom sat up. “I ordered a pizza—can you get it for me? My purse is on the table, just take a twenty.”

Normally, digging through mom’s purse was a groundable offense. One time I had stolen some money from her in a particularly rebellious period. I didn’t even spend it—I just held onto it until she noticed it was missing and yelled at me. The punishment was only eased by the fact that I still had the bills.

I picked a twenty out of her purse and went to the door. Flicking on the porch light, I swung the door open with the money in hand.

“Hi.” I heard. The pizza guy was wearing a company polo shirt and a little visor. I held out the money before realizing a second later who was standing in front of me. He shyly met my eyes and made a pained, awkward expression.

It was Les.

“O-oh, hi, Les! I’m so sorry about lunch, I couldn’t believe the nerve.” My apology wouldn’t have done much at that point, but Les shrugged. Standing there in the porch light, his horns were silhouetted against the dark sky behind him. I had to admit that up close he didn’t look half bad. He carried a strong scent—or was that the pizza?

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have been trying to include myself.” He admitted, and in a moment of arduous silence we exchanged pizza with money. “It’s only fourteen bucks.”

“Keep it. A tip. Hey, is that your car?” I looked beside him down to the street, where a rusty old Zooyota Coyote sat idling. A glowing Donkeyno’s Pizza sign was crudely affixed to the roof.

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Les muttered, pushing the folded twenty buck bill into a satchel on his waist. “It’s a little beat up, but it does the job. Can’t exactly deliver pizza on foot.” I caught him smiling so slightly that I took a second to appreciate how easily it could been missed.

Wait. Hold on.

Les had a car.


	3. Rained Out

It was Friday. The best possible day of the week. As Spring continued its steady march into the familiar hell that was summer in Sahara Square, I was sitting in the last class of the day, English, and for once I wasn’t focusing on the standards of iambic pentameter. I was focusing on my phone, trying to sneak a peek to find out why it had just rumbled.  
  
tuskybeast: lyta there’s a party this weekend. parents out of town. my place at 7. 2morrow  
  
A party. No one had thrown a party in weeks, not in my circle of friends and acquaintances anyway. I was in before knowing anything else.  
  
xxHORNGIRLxx: i’ll be there. who else is going?  
  
tuskybeast: it’s a surprise  
  
xxHORNGIRLxx: lol k  
  
A party with an unknown guest list? Was Clark fucking with me?  
  
Ms. Bassatt looked in my direction as I stuffed my phone back into my pocket. Her tail curled this way and that as she waited for me to say something. I towered over her, but for a kinkajou, she had a lot of presence. The whole class had gone silent.  
  
Finally, I spoke. “I hate iambic pentameter.”  
  
The students around me gasped, and I rolled my eyes as obviously as I could at the drama of it all.  
  
“You hate it?” Ms. Bassatt asked, gesturing to the board upon which she had written a Shakesbeare poem.  
  
“I hate it. Poetry shouldn’t be about sticking your voice in a framework. It’s not fair. It’s like language. Too many rules and it’s dead. Let it live, Ms. Bassatt.” What was I even saying? To be honest, I had read that on a website about the Mareabic-language.  
  
“Well,” began Ms. Bassatt, lifting an eraser from her desk. “You’re thinking of it all wrong. It’s a rhythm. You can still be creative. By the way, if any of you follow her example you’re getting an instant F.”  
  
The class groaned and I tucked my head down. Did she mean that?  
  
“Lyta, just for that, you’re going to share one of your own poems.” Ms. Bassatt turned back to me, holding up the eraser with a broad smile. “Whichever one you like.”  
  
I hated sharing my poetry. Hated it. It was deeply personal, and I just showed it to her because, well, she was my teacher, and I needed at least one pair of eyes on it to make sure it was actually poetry and not something that might get me committed to Cliffside.  
  
“Uh, um, okay. Hold on.” I flipped through my weathered poetry notebook, feeling the head of every other student’s stare affixed directly on me. I came across a poem I had written earlier that week and figured it was safe enough to share. Slowly, I rose to my feet and moved to the board to begin wiping it clean. I picked up one of the markers from the tray affixed to the board and began to write.  
  
One by one the words appeared in front of me. I struggled to keep my handwriting decent, not like the rapid, mindless jotting I did in my notebooks When I finished, I took a step back, giving up entirely on using my body to hide the poem from my classmates.  
  
“Lyta.” Ms. Bassatt was tapping her foot. She looked like she knew perfectly well how cruel she was being. What was that crazy word? Schadenfreude? She was schadenfreuding me big time. “Please read it for us.” With a nod at the board, she took a seat in her chair and gave me an expectant gaze.  
  
I slowly turned, inch by inch, degree by degree, toward the class. Several of them had put their paws or hooves on their chin and were batting their eyelashes at me in self-satisfied mocking. Ugh.  
  
Here goes nothing:  
  
“Hoof and paw, nail and claw. Whether wearing fur or hide, we have pride, we decide when it matters, when we all collide. I’ve got friends down the street and up a ways both types just looking to behave out of phase. I’ve been in scuffs, broke my glasses, put my head down, kicked some asses well not really but I talk a big game, got girls with teeth boys with claws callin’ me hoofer all day the other prey they all say they’ll escape someday, well go on – go – Hyenahurst don’t need you anyway.”  
  
The words felt like molasses in my mouth, but I managed to get all that I had written out into the air. I could tell halfway through that I had one some of them over. Others, well, they never would have admitted it. Ms. Bassatt clapped her hands together ones and gestured me back to my desk.  
  
“Let that be a lesson to you. You can create all you want, but this is my class. We have a curriculum. You keep writing, Lyta, but next time I want something in the pentameter or you’re getting a zero for this lesson.”  
  
Just as she finished admonishing me, the bell rang. I got out of my seat faster than anyone, not even bothering to erase my poem from the board as I hoofed it out the door. Behind me I could hear the jeers and laughter of my classmates who, now free to criticize me, did so enthusiastically.  
  
I immediately headed for the street, taking a side route around the gym building to avoid the herds. There, I ran into Jaide. Kabirah was nowhere to be seen – odd, I thought.  
  
“Ahlan, Jaide.” I called, putting my arm around his shoulders. He tucked his head down and pressed his lithe body against me. “Where’s Kabirah?”  
  
“Detention.” Jaide said the word as if I should have known. “She found one of the Brunsons alone in a hallway between classes, beat him black and blue. They pulled me in for questioning and… and…”  
  
I could see him sniffling, really broken up about it. How could he not be? This was his big sister. His guiding light. Next to his mom, the strongest influence in his life.  
  
“Is she going to be okay? And what, Jaide?” I moved around him, held both his shoulders in my hooves. He looked down and away as if ashamed by proxy.  
  
“They’re talking about suspension. Expulsion. Thing is, no one can prove who started the fight. I mean, I know Kabirah, I know she did, but they can’t pin her with anything unless she admits to it.”  
  
I sighed with relief. “Then she’s fine. She’s brash, but she’s not stupid. I don’t think she’d do anything that would get her kicked off the wrestling team.”  
  
Jaide looked horrified. “Oh no! I forgot about that. She’d be devastated. Ugh, I can’t believe those Brunsons. They knew picking a fight with her outside of school would lead to something like this. I’ve been hearing all week that they’ve been talking trash about kicking her butt at the mall the other day.”  
  
“Come on, Jaide, shhh. That won’t happen.” I pulled him in, hugged him close to my chest. In that moment, I realized something. I didn’t know whether I loved Jaide. We had been dating, but maybe what I felt toward him was more of a protective instinct than anything. He was so cute. Maybe I felt, in a way, that he was kind of like my little brother, too.  
  
I couldn’t break that to him now, of course.  
  
“Let’s find a place to sit and chill out until detention’s over, okay? Then we’ll go meet Kabirah and have her walk us home.”  
  
Jaide nodded, sighing out his worries and holding onto me as I began to walk him to a quieter spot near the auditorium. The auditorium itself was where all sorts of school events were held. Music, dances, performances. Right now, it was empty, and Jaide and I sat on a little bench under a tree while we waited for the clock to hit four. I kept his paw in my lap, hooves clasped around it.  
  
“Lyta?” Jaide asked after a few minutes of silence. “What are your dreams?”  
  
I thought for a moment, startled by the question. “I don’t know… I wanna go to college…” I said, laughing a little under my breath. It seemed likely, but… “When I get there, I have no idea what I’m going to study. I always thought, maybe something with languages, maybe some kind of… culture. Nothing involving math.”  
  
Jaide laid back on the bench with his head in my lap, staring up at me. He smiled. I looked down at him and stroked my fingers over the fur on his cheeks.  
  
“It sounds nice.” Jaide said. “I’m jealous. All I want to do is work in a designer shop. Louis Mutton, Preyda, something like that. I love being around clothes, styles, makeup. I guess that’s pretty stereotypical, though.”  
  
“Jaide, it’s not bad. You have to do what you want.” Honestly, I thought he set his sights a little low. But I couldn’t hate him for it. It just made me wonder what would happen to us a few years down the road when I went to college and he wage slaved, selling designer bags to mammals who would look down their noses at him… “But why don’t you aim a little higher?” I immediately regretted saying it. Like I was judging him. But Kabirah wasn’t here to knock me for that.  
  
Jaide considered it, then his eyes drifted downward, away from mine. “No… Someone like me? I don’t have anything. I just like clothes. No one ever got into college for that.”  
  
I smiled encouragingly, rubbing his neck. “Hey, don’t say that. How do you think designers get started? They go to school. Come on Jaide. I bet if you apply yourself you’ll get somewhere.”  
  
“You think so?”  
  
“I know so. Now come on, I bet Kabirah’s wondering where you are.”  
  
I let him get up off me before leading the way to the classroom where they held detention. Sure enough, Kabirah was standing outside the door.  
  
I hadn’t seen her all day – actually, I had been avoiding her. She was wearing a letterman jacket, and it looked brand new.  
  
“Jaide, I told you to wait for me.” Kabirah huffed. Then she looked at me. I could see her a little scuffed up, fur a little ruffled, but she was holding her head high and puffing out her chest like she had just beat back an army. “Lyta.” She said coolly.  
  
Still burned from our little spat yesterday, I guess. “Kabirah, I’m not going to beg for forgiveness. I have news.”  
  
The bold words were enough to catch her interest. She started walking and, naturally, we followed.  
  
“So, what’s the news?” Kabirah demanded.  
  
“Where’d you get the jacket?”  
  
Grinning, she replied, “Nice, ain’t it? They just gave ‘em to the wrestling team. ‘Bout damn time. If I’m a senior I should look the part.”  
  
“Yeah, looks cool. Okay. So… Small news first. There’s a party on Saturday. Clark. He wouldn’t tell me who’s going.”  
  
Kabirah snorted, “Yeah, ‘cause he wanted to surprise you by invitin’ me too. He saw our lil’ spat the other day, prolly thought he could get a fight club goin’ in his livin’ room or somethin’ stupid.”  
  
I was wondering why he was being secretive about it. Made sense.  
  
“Okay, this next one’s a doozy.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Jaide’s ears perked up.  
  
I motioned to keep walking, and we did until we were off school grounds and on the quiet suburban street behind it. It was a good thing Kabirah had detention, because this late, the place was deserted.  
  
“You aren’t going to believe this. Les. Has. A car.”  
  
Kabirah stopped. Jaide bumped into her, but she didn’t flinch.  
  
“Fucking Les has a fucking car?” Kabirah repeated. “How do you know? You friends with him now?”  
  
I shook my head and stood in front of her, showing her how serious I was by meeting his eyes.  
  
“I got home last night from Simone’s, we were doing homework, and my mom said she’d ordered a pizza. Ding dong, I turn around, open the door, and there’s Les. He’s got a car, AND a job. He’s livin’ the dream, Kabirah.”  
  
I’m more than a little smugly satisfied that I could get Queen Bitch to shut up for a second.  
  
“You know what this means?” Kabirah asked, but didn’t wait to answer. “This means we gotta get in real good with Les and we’ll be livin’ on easy street.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Jaide asked, fiddling with his mane.  
  
“Think of it. Guy’s got no friends. We buddy up to him, get real close, suddenly he’s drivin’ anywhere we want, and you can bet he’ll be sharing his money with us. Shit, we might even get free pizza!”  
  
I didn’t think of it that way. I couldn’t have thought of it that way.  
  
Thinking of it that way was pretty fucked up.  
  
Kabirah was excited, bouncing on her heels as she walked. Jaide couldn’t help but get a little excited too.  
  
“You think he’d buy me some makeup?”  
  
Kabirah shrugged. “Sure, if you suck him off. Don’t see Lyta hooking you up, do we, Lyta?” She shot me a look. I had nothing to say to that.  
  
Jaide looked embarrassed. He laughed as if it was a joke, but I knew he was laughing defensively. All part of being a hyena  
  
“I’m not letting my boyfriend suck any dick.” I announced, putting my arm around Jaide defensively.  
  
Kabirah cackled, turned and walked backwards so she could face us, and gave us the finger guns. “Hey, if you both suck it, we’ll get double the free rides.”  
  
I wanted to say something disapproving, but Kabirah was in too good of a mood. After the fight we had, I kind of just wanted to smooth things over. That’s when I blurted it out.  
  
“Why don’t we invite him to the party?”  
  
Kabirah stopped, her feet at the edge of a crack in the pavement.  
  
“Lyta, I’ve made fun of you before, but you’re a fuckin’ genius. This guy is gonna be beggin’ to hang with us if we get him into that party. He’ll feel famous, he’ll feel liked, and we’ll ride that wave of positivity all the way to… To the goddamn Rainforest District if we want to!”  
  
Yep, it worked. She loved the idea. I knew it wasn’t my brightest moment, but I felt good to get that immediate jolt of approval from my friends.  
  
“Well, it’s just an idea… How should we get a hold of him?”  
  
“Text chain.” Kabirah said.  
  
“Hmmm. Okay. I know plenty of prey, I’ll see if any of them have his number and then get back to you. Tomorrow night, we’ll zip off somewhere. You better have a place in mind after all this trouble I’m going through.”  
  
Kabirah nudged me. We were about at my house. Her signal to split up.  
  
“Talk to you later, leafer. Make sure to fill me in on the details. C’mon, Jaide.”  
  
Kabirah threw her arm around Jaide as he waved goodbye to me. They walked off with her yapping in his ear about the great time they’d have cruising free in a car.  
  
With a spring in my step, I skipped up to the stairs in front of my house and pushed my way in.  
  
“Lyta?” Dad’s voice, deep and calming. Not his angry voice, that’s for sure.  
  
“Hey, dad, what’s up?” I called, walking around the hall until I got the kitchen. There he was, my dad.  
  
The first thing I saw was his red tie – I guess he had found it. He was a big guy, with broad shoulders. My dad was a lion, with a perfectly combed mane and a suit that made him look like a politician. Whether that was good or bad, I had no idea. He was my stepdad, of course, but I never really knew any other father. I called him dad, he called me Lyta, and that was all there was to it.  
  
When I came into the kitchen, he put his arm around me and pulled me close. He looked apologetic.  
  
“I wanted to apologize. I feel like I haven’t seen you all week. With the convention coming to the hotel your mother and I have been working ourselves stiff...” Slowly, his tone changed. “But that means overtime pay. Palm takes cares of its own, I guess. Here.”  
  
Dad pushed his paw into his pocket and retrieved his wallet. Black, shiny, and simple. He slid a few twenties out of it and put them in my hoof.  
  
“Don’t tell your mom. This is strictly outside her jurisdiction as administrator of your allowance. If she catches me, I’ll be cooking dinner for a week.  
  
“But dad, you don’t know how to cook.”  
  
His face dropped. “I know.” He pulled me in for a hug, and I reciprocated. I really liked hugging him. He made me feel safe. I remember back when mom and I were alone, before she met him. She would always hold me and tell me I’d be able to tell a father’s love by his hug. She married dad when I was about four. I barely remember a time before he was my father.  
  
“Will?” Mom. She came in, pulling the scarf off her neck and undoing a few of her suit buttons. I pushed off dad and pocketed the money before she saw.  
  
“Hi, Bea.” Dad moved around and kissed mom on the mouth. I looked away, and she laughed.  
  
“Lyta’s right here! Hold on, Will, let me at least get my jacket off.  
  
“I’ll, uh, be in my room. Hey, I can still go to that party tomorrow night, right?”  
  
Mom’s arms were around dad’s Neck. He picked her up off her hooves.  
  
“Hmm? Oh, yes, okay. Be back before whenever I told you last time.” Mom said between giggles.  
  
I couldn’t get out of the kitchen fast enough. No one likes to see their parents smooch. I bolted upstairs and locked my door behind me, intent on using the night to do as much research as I could on possible destinations with a car and, of course, inviting Les.  
  
\--  
  
It was easy enough. Rich happened to have Les on his phone from when they when on a field trip to some podunk outside Zootopia that produced a bunch of crops. When I texted Les, I could imagine him falling all over himself to reply, and even his texts were shocked.  
  
Antl33rz: omg! are u sure? ill be there! thank you  
  
That was what he sent. I knew I had him.  
  
When I showed up to the party, I looked up and down the street and caught no sign of Les’ car. Weird, I would have thought a guy like him would show up early just to make sure he didn’t miss anything.  
  
I was wearing some fishnets that I had been hiding from mom. I put them on in an alley between my house and Clark’s, praying my hooves wouldn’t snag and rip them. Above the tights, I wore shorts, and a cute shirt with bows on the front. I told myself I looked cute, even sexy, but I’m not sure how much I believed it.  
  
I could hear music from down the block, and Clark’s front door was open. He was welcoming a few mammals, and caught sight of me behind them.  
  
“Hey Lyta!”  
  
I climbed the stairs and waved down at Clark. Short, broad. He was a warthog, and I knew him from some class last year. How I managed to get into his good graces enough to be on his no-parents-party short list was beyond me.  
  
“Make yourself at home. Got some special refreshments inside. Take a load off, eh, Lyta?” He slicked his hair back, a stringy black mass of it. Was he trying to be cool? I shrugged and headed inside.  
  
There was some rock music playing, but not a band I was familiar with. Mammals were sitting all over the place chatting and eating off paper plates. There must have been twenty other guests. By the table, I saw Kabirah and Jaide.  
  
Jaide always clung to Kabirah at parties, as if he was afraid he would get lost. As cute and bubbly as he was, he was a bit of a wallflower in complex social situations. He was standing there, delicately eating some roach fritters while Kabirah helped herself to some fried fish. Wow, nice stuff. I guess Clark’s family was richer than I remembered.  
  
“Hey Kabbi.” I said, strolling up behind her and putting my hooves on Jaide. He was dressed in tight jeans and a shirt that showed his midriff. I kissed him on the cheek from behind and he turned around.  
  
“Lyta, hi!” His eyes dropped down, then up again. “You look really cute today.” He leaned forward as if it was a scandal.  
  
Kabirah looked as she usually did. Torn shorts, a tank-top to show off ‘the guns.’ Nothing out of the ordinary, except maybe the smear of sauce on her lip from the tuna.  
  
“Hey hoofer. Glad you got Les on board. He hasn’t showed up yet, but I’ve been keeping an eye out. Is Simone coming?”  
  
I shook my head. “Nah. She said she was sick. I guess Rich isn’t coming either.”  
  
“Rich?” Jaide tilted his head. “How is Rich not coming related to Simone not coming? We rarely hang out with him.”  
  
I stammered. Uh oh. Had to cover for Simone, so I shrugged and replied, “Just trying to think of everyone who might be coming.”  
  
Luckily, the Brunsons weren’t friends of Clark’s. Unluckily, Tabitha was.  
  
“Hi, Ly.” She said, coming up behind me and standing just close enough for me to hear her purring. I turned around and saw her, whisker’s bouncing. Tabitha was a cougar, and from the look of it, she was already drunk. I could smell the scent on her. Cheap beer?  
  
“Woah, there are drinks here?” I joked, looking at Tabitha with an ample helping of helplessness. I knew I would have to watch what I said, even with Kabirah at my back. Tabitha was head cheerleader at Hyenahurst, and she went through hoofball players like they were chewing gum.  
  
“Yeeep! Iced. In a bucket in the kitchen. Better go before it’s all gone! Oh, and hey, can I just say?”  
  
I winced. What was it going to be this time? Hang on, did Clark invite her? There he was over in the corner, grinning at us like we were about to start fighting. Not cool.  
  
“You’re welcome to try out for the squad again any time. You know, any time you can’t trip over your own hooves and get taken to the nurse’s office. I mean! How uncoordinated can you get?” She howled with laughter, clearly spurred on by her drunkenness. A few mammals nearby – everyone knew who she was – started to laugh with her. I rolled my eyes.  
  
“Okay, thanks… Tabitha…” I turned away, back to the food, and scooped up some chips. It was common knowledge that, freshman year, I tried and failed to get onto the cheerleading squad. High school was scary, and I thought it would be a shield against the social battles that were bound to happen. I was too uncoordinated for it.  
  
“It’s okay Lyta. It’s just not your thing.” Jaide said in my ear as Kabirah scarfed down some more food. Seems like defending me was off the table as long as food was on it.  
  
A few moments later, Kabirah finally talked.  
  
“Hey. When’s your guy gonna be here? All this mammal stink – the hoofers especially – is getting to me. Teenagers reek.”  
  
They do, yeah, you first and foremost. “No idea. He just seemed really excited.”  
  
I heard Clark snort and turned. He was there next to me, leaning on the table as he looked up.  
  
"Hey. How's the spread? Grazing goin' well?"  
  
"Yeah, Clark. It's great. Thanks a lot."  
  
"I heard you and Kabirah had a tough time with the Brunsons? Is it true she's gonna be expelled? Will that mean Jaide too? And then you two will have to break up, right?"  
  
"Uhhh..." My eyes darted around the room, looking for an escape.  
  
Jaide pulled on my arm. “Isn’t that him?”  
  
I turned.  
  
There he was. Les, wearing slacks and a button up shirt like a complete loser. Who dressed this guy? He had to duck own a bit to keep his antlers from hitting the ceiling. I watched him until I caught his eye, and then waved him over.  
  
Clark made a face. "Oh, did you invite him?"  
  
"Err... Yeah! I thought it would be... funny... You'll let it slide just this once, right, Clark?" I wrapped my hoof around one of his ears and stroked it gently. He shivered.  
  
"N-no problem Lyta!" He practically squealed under his breath. This was going to come back to bite me later.  
  
“Hey… Les. Glad you made it. Look, we all want to apologize for the other day, that’s why we wanted you here. You’re a pretty cool guy.”  
  
Les rubbed the back of his neck. He looked at me and Jaide, but avoided Kabirah.  
  
“Hey. Just glad to be here. You guys want to sit anywhere?”  
  
I looked to Kabirah. She nodded.  
  
“Yeah,” she said, swallowing halfway through. “Let’s go upstairs. Find somewhere to talk.”  
  
Les nodded and led the way. Kabirah turned around and gave me a thumbs up while I took Jaide’s paw and followed.  
  
Clark’s house was bigger than I remembered, even if the ceilings weren’t high. Last time I was here, it was for his eighth birthday party. His parents put up a piñata in the back yard and everyone went nuts on it. I can still remember the brands of some of the candies that came spilling out. Piece o’ Honey. Hersheep’s Smooches. Starthirst. All my faves.  
  
As we arrived upstairs, the obvious sounds of moaning kept us far away from one bedroom. In another, it was dark. The door was hanging open, so we let ourselves in without thinking twice. One by one we sat on the bed, and Kabirah sat in a chair. This looked like Clark’s parent’s room.  
  
“Real sorry.” Kabirah finally said, arms folded. She was looking at Les. “Bit of a turf thing, you gotta understand… I can’t handle guys coming in and hanging in my zone before I can vet them, you know?”  
  
Les looked away. “Yeah, I understand…” Did he?  
  
Jaide smiled encouragingly. “Hey, Les, what do you like to do?”  
  
Les looked surprised. “Me? Eh… You know. I get real busy after school, so I don’ do much of anything. I used to do bucking.”  
  
Woah. Way cool. Bucking was sort of like fencing, except instead of swords, horned mammals would butt heads and try to throw each other out of a circle. I sometimes saw a match or two on TV, but I had never seen any live. Our high school didn’t have a team, since, while we had plenty of horned mammals, there just wasn’t enough money to suit them up. Shoddy protective gear probably resulted in a few too many concussions, and the school had to pull the whole sport before I even started attending.  
  
“Interesting…” Kabirah went on. She tapped her foot. “So… You take the bus to school? I never seen you on it…” Clever. Kabirah didn’t take the bus at all, but she was trying to get Les to admit he had a car.  
  
“Nope. I drive.”  
  
Jaide slapped his paws on the bed, “Woah! Cool! You drive? Like, a car? Your own car? What kind?”  
  
Les couldn’t help but grin. It must have been the first time in a while that he felt like the center of attention. I tried to feel good about it, like maybe we were going to add him to our crew. But really? I knew. I knew Kabirah wouldn’t want him around permanently. I knew that, even if she did let him hang around, he’d be treated even worse than me. Only used for his car and whatever else he had.  
  
“It’s a Zooyota Coyote. Old model… Haha, it’s kinda run down.” Nobody ever heard Les talk much, but I was starting to like the heft to his voice. He sounded a little older than the rest of us, even though Kabirah was a senior. Maybe it had to do with how laid back he was?  
  
“You wanna take us for a spin?” Kabirah asked casually.  
  
Les lifted his head, raised his ears. “Four of us? Should fit okay. But don’t you guys wanna stay for the party?”  
  
“Nah.” Kabirah grunted. “Screw ‘em. Buncha losers here. You, Les, you’re cool. Got that silent mystique thing going on. Just think, Monday at school we’ll tell everyone how much of a secret badass you are.”  
  
“Aw, man.” Les blushed. “You don’t gotta do that…”  
  
“It’ll be true by Monday.” Jaide added, patting Les’ shoulder. He got up and hopped over to the door. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”  
  
Les nodded, but I could sense a bit of reluctance. He looked at me once, to check my reaction. I smiled, and he looked away. He got up, and one by one we followed him down the stairs.  
  
“Hang on, let me get some food.” Kabirah muttered, stomping over to the table. The loud music and crowds covered our ‘escape,’ and we were able to slip out into the cool night air unnoticed.  
  
I looked down the steps and saw Les’ car under a streetlamp. It really was beat up. Missing some paint in a few spots, one of the doors was a little busted… The pizza delivery sign still hung in the window.  
  
“Fuck, whoops.” Les jogged over to the car and pulled the sign out of the window. He popped the trunk and shoved it inside, then went around and opened all the doors. “After you, girls.” He said, eyeing Jaide and I. Jaide didn’t seem to mind. He hopped right in, back seat. I think we both knew Kabirah would get shotgun.  
  
“Hey, hoofer.” Kabirah called. I saw her come down the steps, holding something under her shirt. “You take the front. I wanna sit with Jaide.”  
  
Huh. Whatever. Cool.  
  
I got in the front seat, and felt Kabirah slam the door in the back after she got in. Finally, Les got in. He put the key in and immediately turned down the radio talk show that popped on. The car smelled like pizza even now.  
  
“Got anywhere in mind? Around the block seems like it’ll be enough. Here, I’ll just…” Les took the car out of park and lowered the parking brake with a rickety snap. He pulled out from the curb after signaling for a bit. Good driver.  
  
“Nah. Block’s lame. We’re going somewhere cool.”  
  
“Yeah?” Les asked. Was that sarcasm in his voice?  
  
“Yeah. Rainforest. Wok Softly is open really late there.”  
  
“The Moongolian grill? Yeah, sure. I could eat. Gonna take some gas to get there though. And, uh…”  
  
“What?” Kabirah snapped, offensively.  
  
“If we go through Savanna it’ll take longer. Tundra… well… the heater’s broken. You brave enough?”  
  
Kabirah snorted. “I look like I gotta thin pelt? Let’s go. Tundra.”  
  
Well fuck. I don’t know how I’d do in that kind of cold. I wasn’t exactly built for cold temperatures. The opposite, in fact. We all were!  
  
“Whatever you say.” Les teased back. He gunned it, blowing through a yellow light at the last possible second and taking a hard turn into Cactus Grove toward the Tundra Gate. Wait, wasn’t that a toll road?  
  
Yeah, it was. Damn. I saw the booth in the distance, just next to the heat wall, and pushed my hoof into my backpack. Maybe I could pretend I only had a dollar or two…  
  
“I got it.” Les winked in my direction and handed a fiver to the kudu attendant. With one more press on the gas, we were in Tundratown, and it was already beginning to feel like a trip into a walk-in freezer.  
  
“C’mere Jaide.” I saw Kabirah hug Jaide close in the side mirror. She wrapped her arms around him and he snuggled down against her fur. Her chin went over his head as she used her neck to keep his back warm. “Got something else.” Kabirah added. I could hear her toothy grin in her voice. There was a clinking, and from under her shirt, Kabirah let a bunch of bottles fall onto the floor.  
  
“What is that?” Les asked, glancing up to the rearview mirror.  
  
“Soda. Hahaha, whaddya think? Beer, hoofer! We were at a party, you think we were leaving without getting drunk?”  
  
The car fell silent. Kabirah popped open a bottle and started slugging it. When it was empty, she let it drop to the floor, belched, and picked up another.  
  
“Here Jaide.” She cooed, offering the bottle to his lips. He suckled from it, having to pause every few swallows.  
  
“That’s really nasty!” He coughed. Other than Kabirah, I don’t think any of us knew what beer tasted like. Well, maybe Les did.  
  
“Very funny, Kabirah…” I groaned. What the hell? What was she thinking? If the cops pulled us over, we’d be screwed. Being grounded sounded better than jail.  
  
“You want one Les?”  
  
“Maybe when we park.” Les said calmly. I couldn’t comprehend his composure. He was everything here, now, that he wasn’t at school. Mature, collected, even a little cocky.  
  
“Hey, Les. You’re opening up a lot. Acting like a real cool guy.” Seems Kabirah noticed it too. “What gives? You hidin’ a player this whole time?”  
  
Les shook his head. “Just feel more comfortable. Hey, we’ll be at Mogul street soon. Where’s this place you wanna go?”  
  
“Bromeliad street. Never been, but I hear good things.”  
  
Jaide was hiccupping. One after another, a little ‘yip’ ‘yip’ ‘yip’ like he was getting goosed over and over.  
  
"She's actually pretty cute." Les said to mean, under his breath so it wouldn't carry back. Wait, who was cute? Kabirah? Ord id he think Jaide was a girl?  
  
“You okay back there?” I asked. My answer? A beer shoved in my face from the back seat.  
  
“Drink up, hoofer. Or do you wanna stick to lickin’ leaves for all your liquids?” Kabirah sounded unhinged. I took the bottle and eyed the label. Wheat beer, six percent by volume, whatever that meant. Well, I ate wheat. If it was made from wheat, it had to be good, right? Or at least palatable. I tipped the bottle to my lips.  
  
It was awful. It tasted like cold swill running down my throat, but I still swallowed. Why? Why did I swallow? What was I thinking? What would mom and dad say?  
  
“Oh, god, what is this crap.” I complained. That got a chuckle out of Les, who patted me on the back.  
  
“Sokay Lyta. Always tastes bad the first time. I’ve had a few in my time.”  
  
“Huh? How? Aren’t you 18?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“So, what do your parents say?”  
  
“Don’t say nothin’.”  
  
Weird. Whatever. Must have been where Les got his trademark silence at school. I tried to drink some more of the beer, and ended up coughing some up. Take it slow, Lyta.  
  
“Can’t hold it, leafer?” Kabirah asked, slapping the back of my seat. Jaide was giggling a lot between his hiccups, slowly revealing that out of all of us, he was the nervous, stressed out drunk.  
  
“We better get home guys.” Jaide pleaded, but Kabirah patted his back.  
  
Suddenly, it was like we drove into a car wash. Rain began to sputter and splat onto the windshield in heavy waves, and it was suddenly obvious from the cloying humidity that we had made it to the rainforest district without freezing to death. Thank goodness, the beer was the only thing keeping me warm.  
  
“Right, go right!”  
  
Les followed orders. “Shit. I don’t drive her much.” He muttered, taking his hoof off the gas and gliding to a stop on the side of the road. “Is it much further?”  
  
“Nah. Come on. Spin them tires, clopsy!”  
  
Les inched the car along. It was dark, and impossible to tell what street we were on. Where was the rest of the traffic?  
  
“Hang on. Is this a street? Les?”  
  
“Go right dumbass!” Kabirah roared.  
  
Les did go right. He went right and clipped a tree, sending us into a hydroplaning spiral that seemed to turn faster with every horrifying revolution.  
  
“Hold on!” Les screamed, pumping the brake. A bang sounded, and the whole car seemed to jump. Jaide let out a hoarse screech. I admit, I lowed, completely shaken, my shoulders shivering. We finally stopped in a gutter, the rain pounding down in a circle around us?  
  
“Everyone okay?” I asked, afraid of what they might answer.  
  
Jaide snickered hard, the laughter wracking his body. “Can… we… g-go home now?”  
  
Kabirah had both arms around him. “’Ey we’re fiiiine. Come on, we goin’ to the meat market or what? This place got the real stuff! Chicken, man, and turkey!”  
  
What? Really? All this for some boring ass meat that half of us couldn’t even eat? Just how drunk was she?  
  
“Oh, no. No no no no.” Les repeated, frantic. He looked around the car, giving us a cursory check before ripping his seatbelt off and bounding out of the car. His antlers knocked on the roof. In front, he ran around the car, saw the tire near me, and cursed.  
  
“No! Fuck!”  
  
I popped my door open. “What’s going on?”  
  
“My fucking tire’s busted! Look at it!”  
  
The thing was shredded. Oh no. How much did tires cost?  
  
“Les, it’s no big deal, we’ll get it fixed, right? We gonna get home okay?” I was reeling from the alcohol. I realized I had finished the whole bottle, and it wasn’t sitting right with me. The roar of the rain made everything seem fuzzy, lost behind a wall of white noise.  
  
By now, Kabirah and Jaide had gotten out of the car. We were underneath an overhanging platform, so at least the rain wasn’t hitting us. Despite that, when I looked back at Les, I could see his face all wet.  
  
“Oh god, damn, fuck. Okay, hang on, I’m gonna call a cab, we need to get back right now.”  
  
“Les, what’s wrong? It’s just a flat tire. Look, here, I got some money, it should be enough to get a tow truck.” I went to reach into my back and saw Les stomp his hoof.  
  
“No, dammit! My mom is sitting at home waiting for me! I’m not gonna be late!”  
  
“The fuck’s yer problem? You gonna go play checkers with mommy? God, yer more of a freak than I realized.”  
  
“She’s sick, you dipshit chomper! You think I deliver pizza for fun? Got a car to drive chompers around on meat runs? I help pay her bills, and right now she needs my help takin’ her meds. Is that so fuckin’ hard to understand?”  
  
Les' voice was cracking. His anger was turning into panic, into wailing distress.  
  
Jaide covered his face.  
  
Kabirah and I gaped blankly at each other, faces washed clean of any snark or defensive irony.  
  
“Les…” Kabirah hesitantly took a step forward.  
  
What the hell had we done?


	4. Hopeless Youth

“Lyta, are you seeing anyone?”

Yes. “No.”

“Good, because—“

“Is this a speech about how boys are scum?”

“Well…”

“And what if I was attracted to girls?”

“Lyta, I’m trying to be serious here. No hypotheticals.”

“Whatever, mom.”

“When I met your father, I was your age. Ah—your real father. I thought everything was perfect, that we were perfect for each other. It was nothing but lying to make things that weren’t working, work. We lied and lied until I was pregnant with you, and then we couldn’t lie anymore.”

I listened.

“You were only two when we got divorced.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Do you blame me?”

“…Yes.”

She was silent for a long time.

“Lyta, I’m sorry.”

“Ok, mom.”

“You’re growing up. I just want to start telling you the truth more often. Here.”

Out of nowhere, mom retrieved a ratty-looking washrag. It was blue, with some desert flowers embroidered onto it. She pushed it into my hoof. “This was your father’s. Your real father’s. Will doesn’t know I have it. I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“You want me to have it?”

“Yes. He used to use this when he was working on cars.”

“Was he a mechanic?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still love him?”

Mom didn’t say anything. She looked sad, like she had forgotten a voice that was once so familiar to her.

“Thanks, mom.”

\--

The rain seemed to come down harder by the minute.

Kabirah stood there like a statue. I thought she’d be better in a crisis, but she and Jaide were siblings, after all. Maybe they took after each other more than I thought. They were both nervous kids. I knew someone had to do something; why couldn’t it be me?

As the other three looked on, I pulled out my cell phone.

One bar? Really?

Whatever. Had to make it work. I called dad… My real dad.

“Lyta?”

“Dad, no time to explain, can you come to Cloud Alley?”

“Your mother’s worried sick. I’ll be right there.”

“Hurry, dad.”

I hung up. “He’s on his way.” The others could use the reassurance.

I hadn’t been to the Rainforest District much, and the humidity was already bothering me. The amount of trouble I’d get into with dad, unless he didn’t tell mom, was starting to weigh on my mind. Out late, in another district, drunk? I hoped to hide that I was drunk.

“Can we get rid of the beers?”

Les was useless; he was crying against a tree. I huffed and pulled open the car door, grabbing the bottles one by one and tossing them off the side of the street into the darkness down below. We were a long way up.

We could have really used a mechanic about now.

“Shhhh, Jaide.”

As usual, Kabirah was coddling Jaide. He was crying, probably from the stress or from everyone blowing up in sequence. As he covered his face and slumped against the side of the car, Kabirah was holding him and blowing into his ears gently, rubbing his shoulders and telling him it was okay. She kept saying it wasn’t his fault, over and over.

Of course it wasn’t his fault. It was her fault. The fact that she seemed to know it said a lot about what was going through her mind.

Then again, maybe she thought it was Les’ fault. Or mine.

I went over to Les. He was sitting there, the light brown fur on his face soaked by his tears. Near his ducts, it was shiny and black. Crouched down, he looked so small. Not like that tall deer who, admittedly, wouldn’t look half bad if he came out of his shell a bit.

“Hey.” That was one way to broach conversation. At least the initial panic had died down. He didn’t respond, so I crouched down next to him and pulled my rag out of my pocket. Slowly I reached out, unsure of exactly what I was doing. When I pressed the rag to his face, wiping it dry, I knew the gesture was just that. A gesture. It wasn’t going to make anything better.

“Stop it, Lyta.” Les snapped.

I pulled away. “Sorry. It’s not helping… My dad’s gonna be here soon, he’ll take us to your place first so you can help your mom, okay?” I knew better than to ask whether Les had a father or any siblings.

“Whatever.” He replied, wincing. He rolled his head and sighed in frustration, pounding his fist on the tree’s bark. His ears flapped and swiveled and finally he looked up, staring me dead in the face. “I had a crush on you. That’s why I wanted to be nearby. Didn’t want to admit it, so I didn’t talk. Turns out you’re bad news.”

Me? Bad news?

Yeah, because of the company I kept. I wondered if I was getting a reputation for being a bad calf. The kind who smoked and drank and dropped out of high school to shack up with some dude five years older than her? And all because of Kabirah and Jaide. Probably just Kabirah.

Moments later, a bright light beat against my back, illuminating Les before me. He got up and ran to his car, grabbing his stuff and locking the door, then taking one last look at the front right side where the tire had torn and the frame had been crushed. I turned around to see the headlights of my dad’s car, with him waving from the driver’s seat.

Dad drove a nicer sedan, large due to his size, and with plenty of room to fit all of us. It was a shiny, waxy red, like a fresh cherry, but in the dark, it just looked like a bruise on someone’s foreleg.

“There’s our ride.” Kabirah whispered to Jaide as she picked him up off the ground and led him over to it, even opening the door for him.

Wish she’d baby me like that. Nope, instead I was the whipping cow of the group.

I got in last, sliding into the back seat behind dad. Les sat in front because he was bigger and needed the legroom. At least, that’s what I assumed.

“Glad you’re okay, Lyta. I guess I’m dropping them off?”

“Yeah. Les, tell him where you live.”

Les did, trying to keep his voice from cracking, then fell silent. Dad nodded slowly, eyes soft.

“When your mom finds out about this,” Dad warned. “She’s going to lose her mind.”

I was already sweating bullets. Must have been the humidity.

“Are you going to tell her?” I asked, as the car pulled around back toward where the Rainforest District met Tundratown. He drove with casual confidence, not like how Les had been driving at all. I waited and waited for him to reply, but he was either watching the road or torturing me by drawing it out.

“Might as well tell her she’s been kissing Jaide, too.” Kabirah yapped from beside me.

That did it. I shoved my elbow against her. “Shut up Kabirah!” I shouted, eliciting a yelp from Jaide as Kabirah’s body pushed into his.

Immediately she snapped back near my nose. What if she had been closer? Was she going to shred me with those teeth?

“I know.” Dad said.

I could see him smirking in the rearview mirror, eyes occasionally popping up to look at us in the reflection.

“You… know?” I repeated.

“It’s obvious. You three are inseparable, I thought you’d be dating one of them. I guess your mom owes me five bucks. Oh, shoot, my mistake.” Without taking his eyes off the road, Dad offered his paw to Les. “I’m Will McPride. Nice to meet you. One of Lyta’s friends?”

Les didn’t shake. “Not really.”

“Les…” I whined.

“They’re the reason my car wrecked. I just want to get home.”

“Maybe we were, but we’re going to help you pay for it, aren’t we?” I turned to Kabirah and Jaide.

Kabirah shook her head. Her arm was around Jaide’s shoulders, her impressive bulk comforting him in the folds of that letterman jacket.

“Dunno what you mean. He was driving. You can’t blame the passengers. If I yelled real loud and your dad lost control of the car, sendin’ us skiddin’ off the road and into the ice, would it be my fault? Or his for bein’ a shitty driver?”

It had gotten cold again—we were going back through Tundratown. If we were lucky, we might make it home before ten. I worried how much time Les had. It would be fine, right? He was okay with taking us out so far, the only problem was getting stranded out here. Maybe time wasn’t an issue.

Dad was the one to respond to Kabirah, and he did it with a rumbling laugh that only a lion could manage. He was more comfortable driving at night than during the day, probably because of the night vision. Meanwhile, his clumsy addax daughter fell over just about everything when she went to get a drink of water at night.

“Kabirah, you can try, but it’s not going to happen. Besides, don’t you have a self-preservation instinct? Or are you at that age where you think you’re invincible?”

Kabirah sneered. “Who says I’m not?”

“I read an article about it a while ago. Teenagers don’t have their frontal lobes developed, so they take all kinds of stupid risks. They can’t reason well. They think they’re invincible, immortal.”

That explained a lot about Kabirah. Dad was smarter than I gave him credit for.

“And my daughter is an expert at doing stupid things.”

“Hey!”

Jaide laughed, but it was obviously out of stress than anything resembling humor. I wanted to hold him, but with Kabirah in the way, it was impossible. I settled for holding his paw. We clasped our hands together in Kabirah’s lap, and she let it happen. That was nice of her.

After that, we rode the rest of the way in relative silence. Dad turned on the radio, and there was ZPR talking about the recent news.

“What’s next for the Lionheart Legacy? With Roardney Lionheart elected to his first mayoral term just a few years ago, and his son Leodore’s recent appointment to the city council, this family is bound to create a lasting impact on the city of Zootopia. Fittingly, this also marks the first time the child of a sitting mayor has served on city council. Mayor Lionheart comes from the investment business, so let’s talk to our panel of experts about what may be the results of his economic policies. First, from the University of Zootopia, Meadowlands…”

“’Nother lion mayor. Not bad.” Dad mumbled.

“He’s not the first?” Jaide asked.

“Oh, no. His father was. Back in the 70s. You kids don’t know anything about politics, do you? This is what we call a dynasty.”

Silence.

“Yep. Well, it’s nice to see another predator in office. Hope he steers us right. His son’s a good guy, too.”

“Ugh. With all due respect, Mr. Lyta’s dad, this is so boring I’m grinding my teeth.” Kabirah scowled from her seat.

Another soft chuckle from dad. That made it feel like maybe this night would be okay.

“Alright, you guys like Bob Dylamb?” Dad pushed a CD into the player, and that nasally bleating started up.

This whole situation had me uncomfortably out of sorts. I didn’t know how to feel. Was it okay for me to feel better? I glanced up at Les, who was staring out the window as we approached the gate back to Sahara Square.

He probably didn’t feel any better.

We finally pulled up in front of Les’ house. A few of the lights were on, and Les jumped out of the car without even saying “goodbye.”

He bolted up the steps, threw the door open, and closed it behind him.

Just like that, our night with Les the outcast had come to an end.

“What was his hurry?”

“Nothing, dad.”

“Well, alright.” Dad drove off toward Olive Street. He arrived at Kabirah and Jaide’s house, and parked the car right in front. The lights were off—were their parents asleep? They popped out, and Jaide stopped to give me a hug before running after Kabirah. Once they were gone, the car lurched and headed toward home.

Dad huffed under his breath. I was still seated in back, and he stared at me through the rearview mirror as the car traveled the familiar street toward home.

“I can smell your breath. Theirs too, in fact. I just thought I’d wait until you were alone so they couldn’t cover for you.”

“W-what?”

“You were drinking. How much? Where’d you get it?”

Oh, great. I should have known. Dad could probably smell the beer on my breath halfway across town. I panicked, stammering and stuttering and looking everywhere except back at him. I gripped the fabric of my shirt and rubbed it between my fingers over and over.

“D-dad, I…” I knew I couldn’t lie to him. He was gentle, and he let me get away with a lot, but I had a feeling that this was going to be serious. That maybe, the worst part of the night hadn’t come yet. I tried to continue: “I had one. Just ONE beer. I got it at my friend’s party. Clark. Someone else brought it, it wasn’t his fault. I didn’t even like it! It was gross!”

His grip on the steering wheel loosened, and he nodded. The car engine cut off as he took the keys out.

We were home.

“Go upstairs and brush your teeth the second you get in that door.”

“You aren’t going to tell m—“

“No. But if this stays between you and me, you have to promise me something.”

“Anything, dad.”

“Keep me in the loop. Your mom’s right, everything she says, but I know you’re going to break rules anyway. When you do, let me know. Not so I can tell her, but so that I can keep you from getting in trouble like you just did.”

I dipped my head down briefly. Inside, I was bursting with relief. I could barely contain it. When dad got out of the car, I did too, rushing to the front door, opening it, and shouting ‘hi mom!’ while I ran upstairs to lock myself in the bathroom. I heard dad come in after me, then I turned on the faucet and started brush, brush, brushing. The oversized head of the toothbrush felt good against my teeth, and I realized I hadn’t eaten dinner.

Not eating was better than being chubby, I guess. If I didn’t look like mom by the time I was thirty, I’d have nights like this to thank for it.

I heard mom and dad talking downstairs by the time I finished and rinsed out my mouth. She sounded calm. I could still feel the tang of the sour beer somewhere in my stomach, and all I wanted to do was collapse in bed.

In my bedroom, the lights were off, the bed was made, and my computer was unmolested. Good, I didn’t want mom snooping. After pulling myself under the covers, I checked my phone.

A message.

From Les.

Antl33rz: guess I should just be glad no 1 was hurt

xxHORNGIRLxx: im gonna help you pay for your tire Les im so sorry

I waited up another twenty minutes, checking and rechecking my phone, the dim light fading against my eyes as the battery ran down. I must have fallen asleep waiting for him to reply.

He never did.

\--

“Simone, sorry to barge in, but have you seen Kabirah or Jaide?”

I was in one of the science classrooms. Simone’s second period. She was eating alone in the corner of it, a sandwich with some kind of paste that smelled like fruit, and a plastic container full of fat fried crickets. The smell of cinnamon sugar smothering them was palpable.

The room was deserted except for us, and I knew that was just how Simone liked it. It must have been something to do with her species that made her so withdrawn, but I for one liked how quiet she was. She was much easier to get along with than Kabirah.

Simone shook her head, frowning at the intrusion but unwilling to comment on it. I knew she was annoyed with me disturbing her lunch. “I’ve not seen her, nor Jaide.”

“Darn. I haven’t seen them all day.” I drummed my fingers on the desk, looking about the room to sate my momentary disappointment. A thought popped into my head, and I smiled back over to Simone. “Hey, is this the class you have with Richard? Where’s he sit?”

Simone gestured toward a seat in the third row, tall, with a small ladder and its own little desk attached.

“Do you want me to fix you two up? There’s that dance coming up, what was it… The Sunset Dance?”

I couldn’t believe my eyes, but Simone was blushing.

She tucked her head down and meekly replied, “I’m not sure. Does he like me? Maybe you could ask him.” She adjusted her black blouse with the star designs and smoothed out her purple skirt. I’d never seen her fidget like that before. Her tail was bouncing this way and that like a drunken pendulum.

I patted her shoulder to assuage her. “I can ask. He’s not a bad guy. Maybe we can go on a double date. Me and Jaide, you and Rich…”

“What about Kabirah?”

I sat there for a moment, taken aback by the question. What about Kabirah?

“I’m not sure. I didn’t say a triple date. Kabirah… Uh… To be honest I’ve never seen her show interest in anyone. She’s more in love with wrestling and her own biceps than any other mammal. Well, except maybe Jaide.”

“But he’s her brother. That’s expected.”

Yeah, it was. I wonder if I could ask Kabirah if she liked anyone. That is, if she’d still talk to me after what had happened last night. It seems like a lot of things were putting a strain on our friendship lately.

At times, I wanted to tell her to fuck off and just get on by myself. But then, I knew avoiding her would mean Jaide and I had to stop dating. I knew my feelings for him were complicated, but even if I didn’t love him, I liked being around him as a friend. He was quiet, gentle, and his fur was always so shiny and soft. That boy loved his product.

“Well, I’ll figure it out and let you know. Anyway, lunch is almost over, I’m going to get to class. Text me if you hear from Kabirah or Jaide, okay?”

Simone smirked, showing her perfect little fangs, and waved her paw imperceptibly as I turned away and headed out to the quad.

I looked left and right, as if somewhere in the herd of mammals I’d see my friends. It was odd for them to be absent. I wasn’t sure, but I would bet it had something to do with the events last night. Maybe Kabirah was pissed at me for recommending Les, for orchestrating the whole idea with him being our friend because he had a car.

Maybe I was pissed at me for that too.

The rest of the school day was a blur. I hadn’t seen Kabirah or Jaide since that Saturday night, and with Monday rapidly coming to an end, I was getting worried. There was only one way to find out what was going on with them, and that was to go to their house. No problem.

I had been to their house plenty of times, but usually we would just meet up outside and go take the bus somewhere. Now that the city had taken away free student rides – politics, huh? Was this that new mayor’s fault? – we wouldn’t be doing that anymore. As for their parents, well, I thought I had met them a couple years ago, when we were in junior high, but I couldn’t remember anymore.

I arrived at Kabirah and Jaide’s house a bit after 3:30 and trotted up the steps with an anxious eagerness. As usual, I couldn’t take my eyes off that paint design on the side of the house. Camel’s humps. I was friends with a camel girl in elementary school–I wonder where she was now? As my eyes passed over that paint, I noticed the dark tinted windows, excellent for keeping out the Sahara Square sun. During the day, it was hard to tell if there were lights on inside or not.

The door sounded so hollow under my hoof as I knocked.

“Kabirah? Ahlan!” I shouted through the door. Maybe they were both sick.

I waited for a few minutes, knocking on the door in a new pattern every so often. Rappa-tap-tap. Tappa-tappa-tappa. Nothing. I turned to leave.

“Lyta.” Jaide’s voice, timid and unobtrusive. When I turned back, I saw the door open a crack, and Jaide’s muzzle sticking out. As soon as he caught my eye, he slid out of the doorway and closed the door behind him.

“Jaide! What’s going on? You guys weren’t at school today.”

Jaide bobbed his head and didn’t meet my eyes. “Sorry…”

I took him by the shoulders. Gently, of course. I peered down at him, checking him for anything out of the ordinary. I sniffed around his ears and neck. Nothing strange.

“Jaide, where’s Kabirah?”

“She’s…”

He wouldn’t talk. He only trailed off, searching for an excuse somewhere down the street and giving up halfway.

I hefted my weight against him, pushing his slighter frame back against the door. I was being aggressive, because this was what female hyenas did to their male mates. They showed them who was boss. And as long as Jaide and I were dating, I had to show him I meant business the only way I knew how.

If Jaide were an addax, this would be different. I’d be able to displace females of lower rank than me, but males had their own thing going on. I’d have to give him some space.

“Okay, okay, sorry, sorry Lyta.” Jaide whimpered, tail tucking downward. I heard the whisper of a soft, nervous giggle under his breath. He was shaking just a bit, and I felt incredibly guilty. How did Kabirah do this? How did any hyenas do this? An addax wouldn’t need to be half this forceful to get the point across.

Jaide must have been about to speak, but I heard an angry whoop from behind me. I pushed myself off Jaide, softly so as not to hurt him, and saw Kabirah walking up the steps, a heavy-looking bag over her shoulder.

“Kabirah! Are you getting groceries for your parents? I had no idea you were such a good daughter.”

“Outta my way.” Kabirah barked as she passed us, pushing open the door and heading inside.

Jaide immediately followed her, paying me no mind after my display.

Not one to be left behind, I went in and closed the door behind me.

The smell inside their house was incredibly pungent, even a little foul. Everything was dark, and I wished I had night vision like all the preds did. There wasn’t much decoration that I could see, and honestly, the place looked a little trashed. Paint was starting to peel off some of the walls, there was a layer of dust over the window sills, and the tile in the kitchen looked a bit grody. As I arrived in the kitchen, I found Jaide sitting at an outdated-looking wooden table, while the dim light of the open refrigerator cast shadows behind him.

Kabirah was standing there by the fridge, which I could see was empty, packing it full of food. Package after package of wrapped plastic that indicated either meat (I doubted she could afford it), fish, or processed insects. Then, what looked like soymilk, and some green vegetables that looked the tastiest out of any of it. Once she was done, she closed the fridge and started to stock the cupboard with a few cans. I saw one of the cupboards was missing its door, then found the door lying against the wall in the corner, hinges busted.

All this happened in uncomfortable silence. I waited until Kabirah was done, and when she was, she turned to Jaide. “What do you want to eat?”

Jaide fumbled for his words. “Uh—ah—um, whatever’s fine. Sorry I didn’t do anything with the kitchen yet. I was cleaning up the bathroom, there was all this soap scum, and then I vacuumed but the vacuum broke, and—“

“It’s okay, Jaide. I bet the bathroom looks really nice. We can fix up the kitchen tonight.”

I looked between the two, confused, slightly angry at their absence today for making me worry, and curious.

“Hey, do your mom and dad work late too? I was hoping I’d get to meet them and see how they messed you up so bad.” I ended with a laugh to show I wasn’t serious or anything, but Kabirah and Jaide didn’t laugh. Jaide tucked his head down and Kabirah opened the fridge. She pulled out a white styrofoam package and began to tear off the plastic. When she revealed the fish to the air, she set it aside and found a skillet. She inspected it for cleanliness. Then she turned the stove and clicked it on, the electric buzz signifying it was time to cook.

“Lyta, I wasn’t able to come to school today. Jaide stayed home too. We have to do that once in a while.”

Come to think of it, they had missed Tuesday last week. I wonder why I hadn’t been worried then – then I realized that was the day I ate lunch in a class with Clark talking to me awkwardly the entire time. That boar had a crush.

Jaide sighed.

“For the next few weeks it’ll be more than once in a while.” Kabirah added, slapping the fish on the hot pan and sprinkling some salt on top with all the elegance of an elephant on a tightwire. “Jaide, I hope you eat quick, I have to go to work in an hour.”

Jaide nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll eat real quick, don’t worry.”

I was baffled. Work? We were constantly hurting for money and here was Kabirah with an after-school job?

“How long had you been planning to keep this from me?” I asked, watching my tone so as not to sound too combative in their own house.

“Dunno. Been like this for a while. How long, Jaide?”

“Um… About three months.”

“What’s ‘this?’”

Kabirah’s shoulders arched, and I thought she was going to scream at me, pin me to the wall, sniff and assert herself over me. She only arched like that when she was really mad. But, a moment later, she deflated, flipping the fish over and heading to the fridge to get some vegetables.

She began cutting up a cucumber. “Mom finally disappeared.” Kabirah mumbled.

Jaide pretended to preen his claws.

“Your… mom? What? Disappeared?”

“She left home. Then she came back to get somethin’ she forgot, but we didn’t see her. It was like someone broke in and ransacked the place.” Kabirah piled the cucumber up onto a plate and squirted it with some vinegar. “Guess she didn’t forget us.” She pushed the fish off the pan and onto that same plate, then separated it roughly in half and brought it to Jaide.

“Thanks, Kabirah. You’re getting to be a really good cook.” Jaide said with a smile, and got up for a second to find some forks. Then they started to eat.

I was still standing there in the entryway to the kitchen, and slowly I felt myself lean against the wall, unable to believe what I was seeing. Kabirah was being so sweet. And what she was saying…

“So you’ve been working at night? After school? How much? Every night? Are you paying rent?”

Kabirah raised a paw and counted off on her fingers. “Rent, utilities, groceries…” She frowned, let her paw fall and slap the table. “Now I gotta pay for car repairs too.”

Jaide made a sympathetic face, his lips turning down, then he reached over and patted Kabirah’s paw helpfully.

“Hey, at least you got that call center job asap. That plus the stocking job… Now we’ll be able to make ends meet no problem. No more having to shower at school for a while!”

Kabirah leaned on the table, both elbows, as she ate. She looked down at her food and swallowed, then back up at Jaide.

“That’ll be great. Hey, remember that time you snuck into the girls’ locker room?”

Jaide smirked. “Remember? The sight of all those beautiful bodies was burned into my brain.”

They seemed to be in good spirits.

“I’m sorry.” I offered. I had no idea what to say. I couldn’t imagine my mom just up and disappearing. And what about their dad? Last I heard the family was all together... Unless they had been lying to me for months.

“Have you called anyone? Police? Family?”

“Got no other family.” Kabirah fired back. “And the police? You kiddin’ me? I… I…”

Jaide reached across the table and put his paw on his sister’s arm. “She wants to wait longer. If mom comes back and we’re gone, maybe she’ll never find us.”

I held my arms around myself. I couldn’t bear what I was hearing. It had been like this for months, and no one had any idea. Buying them lunch that day at the mall might as well have been a charity case. Could this have been why Kabirah had been so aggressive lately?

Like with Les at school – she was usually never that territorial. Jaide seemed okay, but even I noticed he had been down more frequently than up.

“Yeah… Hopin’ mom comes back. Can’t say nothin’ about dad.” Kabirah finished her food just before Jaide finished his, so she collected the plate and placed it on the counter. She flicked her nose toward it and Jaide hopped up and got to washing the dishes, diligently cleaning the plates and pans and forks and knives that had been used.

“Jaide, you’re going to school tomorrow.” Kabirah said over Jaide’s shoulder, picking something out of her teeth as she did. “One of us has to graduate. Besides, I’m gonna get a job kicking butt in the MMA or somethin’. So, you gotta go and not be absent and do good.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” It was all I could think to say.

Jaide kept washing the dishes, and Kabirah turned to look at me, one arm slung over the back of her chair.

“Dunno. You’re a good chick, Lyta. Cool for a cow. We all got our problems, I just thought… It wasn’t worth it to mention this. Didn’t wanna seem like a workin’ stiff. And I could hide it, too, except now I gotta miss school so we can save up money to pay for those repairs.”

“Does Les know?” How could he? These two didn’t have a cellphone, and if he wouldn’t answer me I doubt he’d answer either of them.

“Nah. Don’t wanna crowd him or nothin’. Seemed like an okay guy, once we were talkin’ to him.”

Unbelievable. Here I thought I was caught between a top tier bitch, her cute little brother, and every other mammal in Hyenahurst. The truth? These two had it harder than just about anyone I knew, and carried it without ever saying anything. Hell, maybe I’d have been frustrated enough to lock horns with Les if I had so much responsibility outside of school. Kabirah was only two years older than me, but standing in that dingy kitchen, I felt more like a calf next to her than I ever had.

Kabirah had nearly become a functioning adult.

Here I was worrying about my future career, about boys and about popularity. Cheerleading. How could I let this struggle pass under my nose? How could anything I said or did from now on ever make them feel any better? Ever help them?

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at my place for a while? You could leave a note for your mom.”

Jaide stopped washing the dishes, the water of the faucet still running as he turned around to defer to Kabirah.

“You think we can do that?”

“Sure, we’ve got a couch. Or you could sleep on the floor in my room. Maybe I’d let you have the bed. It’d be like a slumber party, right? Or, hey, we have a guest bedroom. Mom only lets adults use it, like my aunt, but I don’t see why you two couldn’t stay there.”

Kabirah thought long and hard, going over possibilities in her head so obviously that I could see it in her eyes. Her ears flicked and she turned to Jaide.

“Let’s stay with Lyta. Okay, Jaide? You get to sleep with your girlfriend every night. Sound good?”

Jaide covered his muzzle with a paw, grinning. “Yeah, it does.”

“What about the bills here?”

Kabirah shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. ‘Least we’ll save on utilities. Hey, is your mom any good at cooking pred stuff? Oh, wait, she must be. How could she not–your dad’s a lion.”

That got a laugh out of me, breaking a bit of the tension I was feeling. “Yeah, he is. And don’t worry; I’m sure they’ll be fine with you two staying for a while. We’ll tell them your parents went on vacation for business or something.”

“Business… Sounds like bullshit. But I can lie through my teeth to cover it. Come on, Jaide. Get your clothes together. Pack some bags. We’re moving up the street.”


	5. Sex Ed

Mom didn’t think it was a good idea.

“I’ve told you over and over that those hyenas get you into trouble. Why can’t you have any nice friends? There’s that hyena down the street who’s in the Scouts. You need more friends like him, or Simone. Or that boy from your old school, what’s his name… Clark?” Her tone was brimming with disappointment.

“Honey, I wouldn’t recommend Clark. Just a hunch.” Dad, of course, was participating in the decision-making, and he knew we got drunk at Clark’s house.

We were all seated around the kitchen table, with mom stirring a cup of her favorite caramel rooibos tea. It had a healthy serving of cream, and the milky orange color was something I’d later be nostalgic for. Mom loved the finer things in life, even if, living in Hyenahurst, she didn’t often have a chance to enjoy them.

The setting sun, slowly growing harsher in late spring, filled the kitchen with the dusty, parched air that came from living in a sandstone block. It shone through the blue polka-dot curtains above the kitchen sink. If I concentrated, I could just barely hear the hum of passing cars on the street outside, or distant laughter from the neighbors.

“Well, I’m not keen on the idea. It sounds like just another excuse to spend more time with your hooligan friends instead of studying or… doing something productive and positive. Aren’t there any clubs at school?”

Mom was an expert at interjecting her reprimands into conversations about completely different topics. We were talking about Kabirah and Jaide living with us for a while, and she brought it right back to clubs, my school performance, and whether or not I was on a positive track in life. Typical adult.

“Please? Their parents are out of town for a long time. Kabirah got a job to help pay for groceries. I just can’t stand thinking of them living in that house all alone.” I took off my glasses, playing up the pitiable situation by pretending to be overwhelmed with emotion. I was lying then, but that was how I had felt when Kabirah first told me her mom had disappeared.

Mom looked to Dad, and they seemed to exchange some silent conversation that only married couples could understand. I braced myself for the worst.

“Fine. Provided they help pay for the groceries.” Mom didn’t look at me as she said it. Instead, she took a sip of that fragrant tea and appeared content with herself.

I put my glasses back on and pushed out my chair, yelling ‘thanks!’ behind me as I darted out of the kitchen to find Kabirah and Jaide in the living room where they had been waiting with their bags of clothes. I knew it would be a better sell if they already had all their stuff with them. Inside the living room they were sitting in silence, and Kabirah looked, for the first time, something I could only call nervous.

“You’re in!” I blurted out, trying not to yell it so that my parents could hear.

Jaide hugged me around the waist. “Oh, thank you!” He squealed.

Kabirah grunted and bowed her head low. A respect display? A second later, she got up and started to head upstairs.

“So, where’s this spare room?”

“Oh, yeah. Just up there on the right. It’s getting pretty late, so why don’t you two get comfortable and I’ll see you at school tomorrow?”

“Or in the morning.” Jaide corrected. He stopped halfway up the stairs behind Kabirah, and turned to lean on the sandstone banister and look at me quizzically. “Hey, um… Is it weird that we’re dating and we live together? Isn’t that like siblings dating?”

“Not at all!” I hissed it in a whisper, trying to get him to keep his voice down. “We’re not even the same species.”

Jaide shrugged, then looked up the stairs to hurry after his sister.

I followed soon after, but paused when I heard dad’s voice from the kitchen.

“No, I don’t think so. I guess you have to worry about her having her first time with someone like that, but… From what I know of them, they’re not doing anything romantic.”

I could feel the waves of embarrassment start to lap at my dewclaws as I made my way up the rest of the stairs, desperate to not hear whatever mom was saying in reply.

Upstairs, the doors to three rooms sat open. Mom and dad’s room on one side, the master bedroom, and two smaller bedrooms at the other end of the landing. I had a bathroom all to myself, as did mom and dad, but it dawned on me that I’d have to share it. Who knew how these two would treat it? I bet Jaide took long showers, and would get his product and polish all over the vanity…

I peeked inside the guest room and saw Jaide carefully folding his clothes and placing them into the empty dresser. Kabirah, meanwhile, had laid out on the bed and turned on the TV. She had one paw down the front of her pants as she mindlessly flipped channels. It was pretty impressive that someone who worked two jobs could get so relaxed in what little down time she had. Jaide sat on the edge of the bed once he was finished, then took off his shirt. Even though we were dating, I hadn’t seen much of the body underneath the clothes.

He looked soft, despite the typical roughness expected of hyenas. The fur on his belly was inviting, and his spots followed around to his front. So, they really were on every part of his body. He was slender, and part of me wondered how much of that was related to his mom disappearing and him not having enough to eat… I resolved to make sure they both got breakfast tomorrow, and slipped away from the door before they noticed me. I’d have to try and pet Jaide’s chest fur later.

When I entered my bedroom, I closed the door behind me, reveling in the feeling of being alone after such a long day. My phone buzzed a second later, as if aware that I had just felt that small bit of relief.

tuskybeast: lyta u there

xxHORNGIRLxx: sup clark?

tuskybeast: eyyyy. so the dance. u wanna go?

xxHORNGIRLxx: yeah, but…

tuskybeast: itll be sweet. ill take care of you and show u my moves

xxHORNGIRLxx: i’m dating Jaide, Clark

There was a long lull in his responses.

tuskybeast: ok

When was this guy going to learn?

It was time for me to sleep, so I got in bed and curled up on my side. For a while I tried to see if I could hear Kabirah and Jaide, but I didn’t hear a word. Not even from the TV. Maybe this arrangement was going to work pretty well despite my doubts, and more importantly, my mom’s.

\--

Everything seemed like a dream when I woke up. I felt frazzled, lost. Then I realized I was just waking up from an odd nightmare involving a truck crashing. I tried to shake the feeling by getting out of bed and doing some stretches (the ones we learned in P.E.), but it didn’t help. I was shaken, and all that I could think could cure me was a nice, hot shower.

As usual, I pushed open my door and headed into the bathroom, blinking blearily through the phantom of my drowsiness. I could even feel a sound buzzing in my ears – had I really slept that badly? I opened the bathroom door and stepped in, feeling a hot mist pour around my fur and fog the glasses I had only just grabbed off my nightstand.

What I saw in front of me was Kabirah. She was standing in the shower, in profile, with one of the sliding doors open. She had tilted her head back and was using some soap, rubbing it deeply into her soaked mane. She was, of course, stark naked. Her figure was striking, carved and capable, like she could beat a rhino at arm wrestling. I marveled at her stomach, how tight it was, and her flexing thighs and rear. Glancing just lower, I noticed it through the steamy fog.

It was Kabirah’s…

No, that couldn’t be.

Kabirah was a girl, after all.

As masculine as she was by the standards of other species, she was a girl, just like Jaide was a boy.

That was…

I stood there in shock so long that I swore she would see me. Seconds felt like days as I stared at the space between her legs, at the shape there. When I finally caught myself, I ducked out of the doorway and pulled the door closed behind me as gently as she could. As far as I could tell, she hadn’t seen me.

Just this once, I went into my parents’ room to find the other bathroom, the one connected to the master suite. Dad wasn’t there, and I could hear mom making breakfast downstairs. Maybe dad was getting the paper or something?

I headed in and found my way to the large, elegantly decorated bathroom, feeling like I was walking on forbidden ground. There was a nice woven mat on the tile floor, each tile sparkling clean and the mirror free of flecks of hard water. Mom must have cleaned in here often. There was a unifying theme of flowers, and little picture frames hung on the walls with photos of gorgeous blooms that must have been taken in the rainforest district.

I turned on the shower and got inside, locking the bathroom door behind me. I hoped mom or dad wouldn’t come upstairs and get mad at me for blocking them from their little sanctuary, but I had to do my morning routine. The hot water felt good, and for a moment I almost forgot about Kabirah.

After I got out, I ran the high-grade blow dryer, mainly for dad’s mane I was certain, and toweled myself somewhat dry. I reached for a bottle on the counter and tried to twist off the cap, but instead of coming off and providing me with some leave-in fur conditioner, it started to buzz like a cell phone gone mad. I nearly dropped it as I fumbled with the cap to try and turn it off, then I took a look at what was in my hoof. Blurry. I remembered I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I set the object down and rubbed the fog off my glasses before returning them to my snout.

Whatever I had been holding was a large, ribbed horn, made of some sort of soft white plastic with some spikes on one end. Slowly, the pieces fell into place in my mind. Large, straight, ribbed, soft, and buzzy. Vibratey. It was a vibrating…

I shot out of the bathroom like a bullet, jogging back to my room to put on fresh clothes and head downstairs. Kabirah must have still been in the bathroom, because the light was on when I passed it. What I had seen sent me running down the stairs to the kitchen. Maybe if I was eating breakfast, I wouldn’t draw any suspicion.

I had never been so confused and embarrassed. I was dating Jaide, and Jaide was Kabirah’s brother. Kabirah was Jaide’s sister. I had never seen either of them naked… Until now. Was I being played all this time? Was Kabirah a boy, and Jaide really a girl? How had they been able to convince me? And why the hell had mom left that thing sitting out?

It worried me more than anything. I had heard them called ‘marital aids’ before. Did that mean there was a problem with their marriage? Did my mom no longer love my dad? How could I broach the topic without making it obvious? I shook my head as if to clear it of all the questions and headed into the open kitchen, through an archway from the living room.

Mom was in the kitchen, leaning over the stove in her elegant black suit as she fried some kale. The struggle of a working mother, that’s what she’d say. I could smell toast in our four-slot toaster, and the idea of warm, melting butter spread over it got me excited. Whatever I could do to forget about what I had just seen, right?

“Good morning, mom.”

“Oh, Lyta. Your friends haven’t come down yet, and I woke up a bit early, so I thought I’d cook… Can you tell me what they’d eat? The same as your father?”

I hadn’t realized it, but it was a huge bonus that dad was a lion. It meant we had all kinds of stuff for predators to eat, and mom was even used to cooking it. It was pretty admirable. I mean, I had grown up with dad, but mom must have had to get used to the smell and the sight of meat. For prey, that wasn’t always a compromise they were willing to make.

“I’m sure that’d be fine. Maybe some of that turkey bacon… I’m sure they’d love that.”

“It’s funny,” Mom remarked, “in one night, predators have outnumbered prey in this home. It’s not like Zootopia at all, is it? I mean, you know how predators are… rarer. I suppose that means I just got very lucky to find a man like your father, don’t you think?”

“I never thought of it like that. You’re a total optimist, mom.”

As mom stirred the kale, I saw Jaide outside the kitchen entrance. He waited quietly until Kabirah entered, and then he followed in. If Kabirah was a boy, she’d have to go last, right? Could they really be faking their roles so well, even culturally?

“Good morning, you two. I’m just about to put on some bacon. Oh, and – you like eggs?”

“Love ‘em Mrs. L.” Kabirah replied as she sat next to me. Jaide sat on the other side, scooched up close. I shook my head, then nodded sideways toward mom to indicate the reason for making extra space. Jaide tugged his chair away, but looked somewhat hurt. A second later, the bacon must have hit the pan, because the sizzle and the smell filled the room instantly. As if summoned by it, dad entered the kitchen, stretching his arms and yawning so wide I could see down his throat. He was wearing a suit, but looked far too tired to be dressed so well.

“Will, I’ve just put on some bacon. Eggs are next. Can you take this to Lyta?”

Dad scooched up behind her, and I averted my eyes as he squeezed her behind and put his head over her shoulder. I could hear them kissing, ugh.

“Oh, let me have one more second here, Beatrix…”

Mom giggled, and I thought I was going to die. Maybe Mom and Dad were going to be okay after all. Kabirah and Jaide didn’t seem to be paying any attention, though. They just sat there looking at their empty plates, then curiously about the room. It was the first time they had been in my house.

After a moment, dad came over with the pan of kale and laid some out on my plate. Then the toast popped out. He said “I got it.” and pulled it out hot with his clawtips. He put it on my plate and handed me a butter knife.

“Here you go, sweetie. So, we’re gonna eat some meat, right guys?” He was grinning at my best friends. Wow, it looked like he was really warming up to them.

As I spread butter on my toast, Kabirah nodded up at dad. “Can’t believe you guys got this nice stuff. I smell turkey, right? Bacon? Man, that costs way too much. I’m really uh, honored.”

Jaide nodded enthusiastically. “I can’t remember the last time we had anything other than that protein enriched cereal gunk for breakfast. Hot breakfast beats cold any day of the week!”

Dad chuckled, sitting down across the table as mom pushed some bacon and eggs onto their plates. The whole kitchen felt cramped with everyone around the table, but at the same time, it felt cozy. It felt like everyone was getting along, and I was savoring it. I thought how lucky I was to have all these mammals in my life.

Even if Kabirah had been a pain in my ass for the last few years.

Now that she was sitting here next to me, I couldn’t look her in the eyes. At least she made no indication of knowing I had seen her…

Well, I don’t want to say it. Her privates. Maybe I could forget the whole thing and it would all pass without incident. Until then, I’d just have to eat my breakfast like everyone else, and pretend to not have any sneaking questions.

\--

School that day was uneventful, and I mostly avoided Kabirah and Jaide for the day. Kabirah didn’t have to work at her second job, but she’d be leaving for her first right after school ended. Sure, we ate lunch together, and, worryingly, Les was nowhere to be seen, but other than that it turned out to be a surprisingly average day. Maybe what had happened had all been in my head. A trick played on my eyes by my morning stupor and the shower steam.

When I got home, Kabirah and Jaide followed, and it was a little unusual until I remembered our arrangement. Kabirah entered my house first, mumbling about how she needed to wash up before going to her night job. Jaide snooped around the kitchen and decided he had to go to the store to get some of his favorite things, so he begged Kabirah for some money and left shortly after her, after saying goodbye to me.

The house was quiet again. I hadn’t seen mom and dad yet, so I assumed they were going to be working overtime as usual. I sat down on the couch and before I knew it, I was checking for texts and letting the TV add a comforting noisy distraction from the day’s events.

There was a message from Les!

Antl33rz: sorry about not saying anything. its gonna be okay

Before I had the chance to answer, something more pressing came up. Two new messages from Simone popped up:

astrocanis: Be sure to ask them if they want to come to the dance. It’s coming up.

astrocanis: And please ask Richard…

I had my work cut out for me. I’m sure Kabirah and Jaide would be okay with it, especially since I was operating under the assumption that they owed me a favor. But Richard? I didn’t know him as well. What if he had a girlfriend? Simone would be devastated. Maybe she’d go back to pursuing the other wolf with the ‘well-developed flanks’ or whatever it was, but I wasn’t so sure.

Completely forgetting about Les’ message, I sat there for about an hour watching “Den: What Then?” a home makeover show that filmed all over Zootopia. It was a fun way to see how other mammals lived, especially in other districts, because often times different homes

weren’t just resized versions of one another. Every mammal had unique challenges due to the size and shape of their body, their habits, and their budget.

When the show ended, I was surprised that no one else had come back. I took my backpack and phone and headed upstairs, walking into my room and setting everything down. I turned on my computer. From outside my room, I heard a thumping sound. Was someone knocking at the door? I remembered Kabirah and Jaide didn’t have a key, so I headed out of my room. On the landing, at the top of the stairs, heard another sound and froze. It was coming from mom’s room. Had she just screamed? I didn’t even know she was home. The cars were in the driveway, but I hadn’t heard anything. Maybe they were in the back yard?

There was no time to rationalize what was going on. If mom had screamed, I would need to help her. I swung the door to her bedroom open and stood in the door frame.

“Mom?!” I cried.

Mom was there, and so was dad. Her head shot up from in bed, and I could see the fur of dad’s back, his tail swishing, positioned over her like some kind of ancient beast going for the kill. What were they…

“Get out!” Mom shouted, her face dripping with tears or sweat.

I backpedaled, nearly falling over my hooves, and slammed the door closed. Immediately I heard dad laughing like he had just heard the best joke, and I rushed back to my room, closing the door behind me.

Just my luck.

I sat down at my computer and started up ZOL, searching through my contacts. My eyes glazed over in front of the screen, struck by what had happened. I knew what mom and dad were doing, what I walked in on them doing, but I didn’t want to say anything. I thought it would all blow over. Right?

I wasn’t right.

An hour later, someone knocked on my door, and I opened it a crack to see mom standing there, looking flustered. I opened the door wider and she stood there, hastily dressed and completely unsure of what she was going to say to me.

“Lyta, I think it’s time we talk.”

Oh no. Was this the talk?

“Lyta…” Mom stepped into my room. I went back to sit on my bed, and mom sat in my computer chair. “Your father and I, ah… Sometimes we… You see, when adults love each other, they…”

“You two were having sex.” I mumbled.

Mom paused, her ears raising. She looked away and rubbed her elbow like I did when I was nervous.

“Well, yes. We’re married. Sex is basically… You see, a man has a… Penis, and women have a…”

“Oh, my gosh, mom, I know what we have. Remember when I first got my period and I thought an alien was devouring me from the inside? You gave me a talk then too.”

Mom nodded. “That’s right, I remember. Well, look, I don’t want you having sex until you’re… Maybe not married, but more grown up. Okay? Maybe college. Can I trust you to not worry me until then? You’ll be a woman by then and you can make any sort of decision you want. But so help me I’m not going to the clinic to get birth control for my sixteen year old daughter. By the way, are you seeing anyone?”

Yeah, the boy who just moved in.

“No way mom. Do I look popular enough to have a boyfriend?”

“Or a girlfriend?” Mom asked, trying to catch me on a technicality.

“No, mom.”

A few seconds passed as she sat there, studying my face for signs of lying. Once she was satisfied, she got up and looked at my computer. The screensaver searched through maze.

“Well, be sure to wash up for dinner. Your little friend came home and told me what time his sister would be coming back.”

“Sure mom. Now can I have time alone while I recover from being traumatized?”

Mom’s ears flushed red and she backed out of my room, closing the door behind her.

My mom had just given me the talk. I vowed never to speak a word of it to anyone.

 --

The next day. First period, social studies, and I couldn’t get Kabirah nor my mom’s talk off my mind. I pondered asking someone about Kabirah, but that would be stupid. My phone wasn’t nearly nice enough to be able to browse the internet – in fact, didn’t opening the browser charge you like, a hundred bucks? – and I didn’t have time to do it anywhere else.

Here I was, stuck in first period, when the teacher wheeled the TV over from the corner. Mr. Dromeadows quieted the class and began with a soft huff.

“Unfortunately, we’ll be suspending our usual studies today in favor of something the school board has only recently approved.” He was muttering, obviously not happy about it.

The school board? What did they even do?

“Today’s class, and possibly tomorrow’s, will be focusing on the topic of sexual education.”

The class fell silent for a moment, then erupted into giggles and rushed whispers, excited or annoyed students talking back and forth until Mr. Dromeadows. cleared his throat again.

“Uh huh. Now, we won’t have time to cover every species, but we’ll go over many of the commonalities shared between groups and major families such as bovidae, muridae, canidae…” He trailed off, clearly tired of saying the words, and pulled a VHS tape out of a case that was sitting there on the TV stand. “This was made in the nineties, so bear with me. Can someone get the lights? Thanks.”

After he slipped the tape in, the TV blared to some obnoxious nineties pop backing a rabbit girl, who introduced herself as the host.

“Hey!” She said casually, her ripped jeans and plaid t-shirt enough to make me want to get up and leave. “Teens and sex. Oldest pair in the book. I bet you guys have a lot of crazy ideas about what sex is, right?” The video cut to several different mammals, each giving equally vague answers.

“Wrong.” The bunny continued, shaking her head, then leaning against a graffiti covered wall. “Let’s talk about what it really is.”

The video went on like this for quite a while. The bunny talked over images of male and female reproductive systems, many of which had to be compared as she spoke, with their common attributes explained. I tuned most of it out, staring mindlessly as the cheap nineties drum line continued.

Then I heard the word ‘hyena’ and perked up.

“Hyenas are among a unique subset of female mammals, dude. They have what’s called genital masculinization. Woah, what does that mean? Let’s ask a doctor.”

The image flipped from the bunny to a female hyena in a doctor’s coat and glasses. Her name, Anna Crocuttin, flashed across the bottom of the screen. Her tone was far too reserved for the video, as if she actually cared about what she was discussing, and hadn’t rehearsed a bunch of cheesy lines.

“You see, the basic difference is that female hyenas, like their male counterparts, also have a protrusion that they can retract at any time for entry. It’s kind of like they have the best of both worlds.” She was so matter of fact about it.

The camera bounced back to the bunny, and she continued on with another family of mammals.

When the video ended, Mr. Dromeadows stopped it and took the tape out of the player. He regarded it with disdain as he slid it back into its cover.

“I couldn’t stand all that slang, but I guess you kids understand it. I bet my hump all that information was outdated, too. Especially about protection. You kids use condoms? Well, double up.”

No one said a word, each student too uncomfortable to weigh in on what they had just seen and heard.

Class ended soon after that, and I booked it to second period without stopping to talk to anyone on the short break we had to transfer classes.

I could tell it would be a long day, but at least I had my answer.

Kabirah, and other female hyenas, had “the best of both worlds.” I was still a little unsure of what that meant, even after seeing the diagram. Could Kabirah get me pregnant? Were girl hyenas, I hated myself for thinking this word, freaks?

I didn’t think I’d be able to ask Kabirah herself. She’d probably knock my jaw off.

But who else would know?

\--

 

“Jaide, this is really sweet and all, but…” Jaide was in my room. I had closed my door, and it was late. When he got back from shopping we decided it might be fun to try and sleep in the same bed. My double would probably fit him just fine, especially because it was made for a larger mammal – namely me. We were sitting on the bed, holding hands, and Jaide was kissing my neck.

“It’s okay, Lyta. This’ll be fun. We’ll be like a real boyfriend and girlfriend.”

I was blushing, and my body felt hot. I knew it would be fun, but there was a nagging voice in my head telling me to slow down. It was probably mom’s.

“I’ve just had a really long day… Maybe we can just cuddle.” I explained, putting my arm around Jaide’s shoulders. I nibbled at his ear, and he covered his mouth to laugh before falling down on his side on the bed. We fit, but just barely, no thanks to the small army of plushies on my bed.

“Are you sure?”

“Do you have any, you know, like, condoms?”

Jaide stammered, “Of course not.”

“Then we can’t do anything. We had sex ed today. You gotta double up.”

“Please?”

“Sorry.”

At a loss for words, Jaide sat there, rubbing the arm of a plush addax between his fingers sorrowfully until I laid down next to him. He put his arms around my waist and rested his head on my chest, happy to hold a real addax.

“Um, so…” I started to say, “It’s just… my m-mom gave me a talk. She wants me to wait.”

“How long?”

“College.”

“Well, that’s not too far… But…”

“But what? Jaide, I really think I should do what she says. She’ll hang me by my hooves if she finds out.”

“I’m just.. What if we’re not together by then? What if you go to college and I’m working at a Trader Doe’s bagging groceries? I care about you, Lyta. I don’t wanna lose you to anyone or anything.”

It was a sweet thought, but I couldn’t imagine what he would do if there was actually something getting in the way of us being together. I stroked his soft, conditioned mane, smelling the juicy, sweet scent of the product in it.

“I’ve been trying to tell you. That’s why you have to have ambitions beyond this neighborhood. We live in an amazing city. You can do so much here. You could be a designer, heck, even a hairdresser. What about beauty school?”

“Maybe…” He trailed off. It was dark outside, and I pulled the sheets over us to give us the feel of being covered while mitigating the heat. “I guess so. I’ll try.”

“Good.” I whispered, nuzzling the space between his rounded ears. We lay there together for a moment before something came rushing back into my head, and I had to ask. “Hey, um… Can I ask you about Kabirah?”

“Not very romantic bringing up my sister.”

“Oh, please. We’re just cuddling.”

“What is it?”

I searched for the words, unsure of what I would find.

“I uh… Er, no, wait. So, the sex ed tape we watched in class had this doctor lady, and she was saying that girl hyenas have, like, equipment? Like, not just… you know, girl stuff, but they have… Like…”

“Dicks?” Jaide interrupted.

“Uh… Y-yeah. Dicks.”

I felt him shrug. “Sort of. Not really. It’s complicated. But yeah, girl hyenas kinda do.”

“Do boy hyenas have a… I mean, you know… Like… do you have a period?”

Jaide snorted. “No! I’m a boy!”

At least that cleared things up. I felt like I was a complete idiot, living in Hyenahurst and not knowing that basic fact about hyenas. Thank goodness I had Jaide to set me straight. He was here, in my bed, and he wasn’t trying anything. I respected that.

“Sorry about all that.”

“It’s okay, Lyta. Just promise me you don’t go asking Kabirah about it. Knowing her, she just might whip it out and show you.”

I tried to keep from laughing, my whole body shaking next to Jaide’s. “Damn, I can totally picture that. Okay, I won’t ask.”

We waited there in each other’s arms to fall asleep. The cool night air blew in through the cracked window, and during that last half hour of being awake but silent, I pulled Jaide against me, finding comfort in the feeling of his weight next to mine. It felt like things were getting serious. I wondered how serious he thought they were, but before I could ask him, he fell asleep.

He slept like an angel.

A drooling little angel.

If I could convince him to push himself, maybe we wouldn’t have to go our separate ways. Maybe we could get more serious. Then it struck me. The way to push Jaide was to be his Kabirah. The reason he wasn’t pushing himself was because his older sister, the strongest female influence on his life, was holding him back. It wasn’t a nice thought, I mean, she was providing for him, but I knew she didn’t have the maturity to encourage him to go to college.

I wasn’t about to claim that I did, but I had do what I could for him.

\--

Day after day, the same routine. Kabirah disappeared after school, Jaide and I hung out in the living room or our bedroom – with the door open, as per mom’s orders – and as the week went on, the Sunset Dance drew ever nearer. I had already texted Rich about a surprise date for him, figuring that would be better than trying to hook him up with Simone. He fell for it, and agreed to meet me at the dance.

Jaide, of course, had decided to come with me. He hadn’t been given an option, really. On Wednesday of that week, I took him by the scruff of the neck, stared him in his golden eyes, and informed him that he was coming with me. This was behavior he was all too accustomed too, and he nodded obediently, then started discussing what he should wear.

As for Kabirah, well, I barely got four words into telling her there was a dance when she said no.

“I’ve got a shift that night. Sorry. You take care of Jaide, alright?”

That was that. I agreed.

The plan was to meet up around seven outside the school’s gymnasium, which had been decorated to look like a shimmering orange sunset. I forgot what it was supposed to represent other than an opportunity for high schoolers to grind on each other.

The streetlamps shining overhead started to wear on me as I waited there with Jaide. Mammals passed us on their way in and out of the dance, and I felt a pair of eyes on me during the whole time Jaide and I stood around. Whoever it was I didn’t catch a glimpse, and figured it was the relatively crowded spot and my imagination. Eventually, Simone showed up, apologizing briefly for being five minutes late.

This dance was something special. I finally decided to wear my Juicy Jaguar Couture dress, a mint-colored minidress that barely came to my knees and lacked sleeves entirely. I was showing a lot of fur, especially my back, and Jaide couldn’t keep his eyes off me despite his own well-manicured appearance. He had on a yellow blouse over a pair of tight slacks that accentuated his legs. His claws matched his blouse, and he had showered for an hour prior to coming.

Simone was dressed more conservatively, in a collared navy dress that looked like it could have belonged to a librarian. Actually, I kind of liked it, and I resolved to ask her where she got it later.

As we walked into the gym, I took point, feeling proud to lead for once without Kabirah around. There were mammals filling the open space, but the crowd was kept in check by the tables scattered throughout the wood-paneled floor. On the far side sat some buffet-style food and a large bowl of neon punch, next to which Rich was standing and trying not to get stepped on. I made a bee line for him, and once Simone saw where we were going, she tucked her tail down and clasped her hands behind her back.

 “Hey! Lyta!” Rich waved, bouncing on his little hooves. “I’m so happy you asked me out! This is going to be great! Oh, hey Simone. Is that your boyfriend?” He gestured to Jaide with his hoof.

Simone’s ears turned red and her eyes widened. She looked to me in desperate silence, begging for help as the rap music being played seem to throb with harder beats each second, in time with her rising heartrate.

“Uhhh, actually, this is my boyfriend, Rich. Jaide, remember? And I didn’t ask you out.”

Rich’s jaw dropped. “Wait. What? You… Oh, you didn’t? You’re not the surprise?”

Before I knew it, I was massaging the space between my eyes with my fingers, kneading out the frustration.

“N-no, Rich. Geez. No. Look, Simone really likes you, I didn’t know if you’d reciprocate, so I asked you here on false pretenses to present you with the chance to get with her right here and now. Alright?”

Behind me, Simone covered her face and said “no” softly, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from explaining the situation. To my profound relief, Richard grinned like an idiot.

“A smart girl like Simone wants to dance with me? Damn. I’d love to.” He raised his arm, offering his hoof to the much taller Simone. She crouched a little and took his hoof, before letting him lead her into the dance floor. She turned back to me and mouthed a thank you before disappearing into the crowd with Richard.

Just what was she going to do with that little dik dik? I took Jaide’s paw and followed them at a distance, stopping to grab a cup of punch. Jaide and I stood near the refreshment table, looking out through the crowd to see Simone paw in hoof with Richard, dancing awkwardly and occasionally picking him up under the arms to keep him out of the way of some rowdy lions or rhinos dancing nearby.

I knew why they didn’t separate mammals into size classes, but I couldn’t help but think it would have been a good idea in this situation. Besides, this was Hurst High. A low-income hell hole, its worth proven in the crappy VHS tapes and the ugly dance decorations. A bunch of orange and yellow paper to indicate a sunset? Really? If the kids going to this school got injured at a dance, it wasn’t likely either the kids or the school could afford a doctor. I was one of the lucky ones, but it didn’t make me any more eager to bust a move next to a hippo.

“Hey, hoofer.”

I nearly jumped out of my fur. I whirled around to see Kabirah standing there at the table next to me, her paw on Jaide’s shoulder as he got her a cup of punch.

“What the hell are you doing here? Did you skip work?” I wasn’t going to let her ruin this for me.

“Relax. I’m here to uh… chaperone.” She grinned, and I rolled my eyes defiantly.

“We can take care of ourselves. You… Ugh. Fuck. I’m sorry. That must have sounded bad. You’re great for working those jobs and taking care of Jaide, but you don’t need to supervise us like you’re my mom. They have teachers chaperoning this dance.”

Kabirah shrugged slowly, arching her back as she did. In one gulp, she emptied her punch cup and slapped it down on the table.

“Yep. I know. Glad to see it. Hey, have you seen—“

“There you are. I can only stay another hour until I have to get home to mom.”

The deeper voice of Les was about all I could take. He had emerged from the crowd in a pair of jeans and a button up shirt, his dark complexion a soft chocolate in the lights overhead. Both his hooves were in his pockets, and he looked embarrassed to be there.

“Hey.” Kabirah said, nodding to him.

“Hey… So… How do we do this?” What was he talking about?

The tempo of the songs had slowed. Kabirah took one of Les’ hooves out of his pockets and did something I would never forget.

She started dancing with him.

It was clumsy, of course. Neither of them looked like they had ever rehearsed, and both of them looked embarrassed. They danced to the rhythm of the ballad blaring over the cruddy school speakers, as Jaide and I looked on in awe. They were only a few feet away from us, sworn enemies, as far as I knew, until now.

“Hey, quit starin’.” Kabirah growled. Jaide took a step back, but I stood stock still.

“How… Why… What…” The words just wouldn’t come. Kabirah laughed, and Les followed her lead there too.

“She showed up at my door with five hundred bucks, and apology, and asked me to come to a dance with her. How could I say no?”

“I thought you had a crush on me.”

Jaide frowned. “He told you that?”

“You were there. Right after the crash.”

“Kabirah would have been my second choice. Then again, you did fuck things up pretty badly.

“Is your mom okay?”

“She’s fine. I had plenty of time to get back, I guess I was just… scared.”

“Sorry you’re so jealous, hoofer, but I’m gonna date this prey, okay?” Kabirah sneered as if she had taken something from me. Yeah, sure, something I had only a passing interest in.

“You two are gonna date? Just like that?” I was asking all the questions – Jaide rarely asked anything that could be construed as a judgment.

“She made good. She apologized.”

“Ha, I would have liked to have seen that.”

“It’s gonna be fine. Quit bad-mouthing our love, hoofer.” Kabirah guffawed, and Les joined in a little bit. If they could both laugh at me for the same stupid joke, maybe they really did have some chemistry together after all.

“Whatever. Jaide, come on, let’s leave these two in peace.” I grabbed Jaide’s paw and led him off deeper into the crowd, until I was sure that Kabirah was halfway across the gym. Wordlessly, I grabbed Jaide’s slender waist and pulled him close to me. He put his paws up and onto my shoulders, and I thought about the impossibility of Kabirah Dabaehar dating a prey.

And, also, whether she peed standing up.

I thought and thought, flipping back and forth between angry and mystified. I tried to examine my thought process, to slow down. Why was I angry? She hadn’t stolen anything from me. I still had Jaide, and despite some reservations over the past few weeks, I was starting to like him more. To want to stay with him, help him, and guide him. Mystified? Well, yeah, anyone would be. But when I thought about the fact that Jaide had dated me for months, it became far less absurd that Kabirah would date a prey.

Deep into thought, staring past Jaide and into the folded-up bleachers on the far side of the gym, I felt a paw grab my ass.

Turning around rewarded me with the sight of a hyena, male, with the smuggest look on his face. He had sunglasses tucked into the neckline of his dress shirt, and was narrowing his eyes as if sizing me up for the taking. He mane, slicked back, made him look like a greasy asshole from the floor of a casino.

“Yes? Was that on purpose?” I asked, shock evident in my shaking voice. Jaide had taken a step back from me, and we weren’t holding each other anymore.

The hyena leaned forward and raised his eyebrows. He only came up to my neck, but it was obvious that he worked out.

“You bet, cutie. You wanna drop the pussy and dance with me? Guaranteed to make you happier standing up on the dance floor… And laying down.”

Before I knew what happened, Jaide had pushed me aside, holding his arm out in front of me.

“You got a second to leave.” He snarled in the other male’s direction.

Jaide was smaller, he was slighter and, to any mammal who wasn’t a hyena, he was more of a girl than a boy. The other hyena retained his smug exterior with a big stupid grin and shifted of his weight onto his other leg.

“She yours? Come on. You’re into all that outdated shit; getting all cute? Painting your nails? Look where we are.”

We were in the eye of a teenage hurricane, one song ending and another beginning as hormone-drunk teenagers bounced back and forth with each other. I was reeling a bit myself, and I wasn’t sure why.

The smug hyena reached out for me, pushing his arm past Jaide and putting it on my shoulder.

“She’s gotta want a real dude, right? Get with it. Dress like a guy. You go anywhere but Hyenahurst and you’ll be laughed at, you little—“

I stumbled backward as Jaide pushed me back, adding a foot of distance between us. As I watched, Jaide jolted forward, tucking his head down and butting the other hyena in the throat. The guy coughed and fell in a motion as fluid as a collapsing sand dune. Someone shouted “Fight!” and though the dancing continued, mammals were starting to turn and watch. A girl screamed, maybe it was me, as the smug hyena coughed rolled onto all fours and then reached up tried to grab Jaide’s shirt with one of his paws.

Jaide was too fast for him, but then he reached again and caught him by his belt, dragging him to the ground. Jaide fell on top of him, and as the other hyena tried to claw at his stomach, Jaide brought his paws down around his neck and slammed the back of his head into the ground like he was trying to crack open a coconut. Dazed, the other hyena’s arms fell to the floor. There was another scream.

“Jaide!” I was hoarse, and pulled Jaide up off the other guy.

“Damn, did you see that?” Someone said.

“Yo mam’ where’d you learn to fight?”

Jaide kept staring and growling at the downed hyena. I had never seen him so angry. His mane prickled up like a cactus.

“My sister!” He replied to whoever had asked, clenching and unclenching his fists.

That night, I saw him in a new light. It might sound ridiculous, but I had never seen an ounce of strength in him, or direction for that matter. That night, Jaide showed me two things. First, that he truly cared about me, more than some little fling. Second, that he was actually capable of fighting for what he believed in. I wasn’t sure if he struck those blows for me, or for his right to dress how he wanted, but I had a newfound respect for him as his own mammal, rather than a kite being dragged along by hurricane Kabirah.

We retreated away from the crowds, intent on slipping away before one of the teachers caught wind of what had happened and expelled the both of us. We slipped out one of the side doors, kept propped open by a block of wood, and into the brisk evening breeze. The heat and scent of all those bodies was nearly making me delirious, and I took a few moments to breathe in and out manually.

“Fuck me!” We barely had caught our breaths before Kabirah burst out of the same door we had left through, Les in tow. “You see that Les? My little bro shook that guy’s brain like yolk in a fuckin’ egg!”

Jaide was still agitated, but Kabirah threw her arms around him. His arms were pressed to his sides as she squeezed him tight, then parted and looked over at me.

“Can I teach someone to fight or what? The cutest male on the block and he fights like a gnarly fuckin’ girl! Incredible! Hey, I’m only takin’ half the credit for this.” She snickered, and leaned against Les.

Les nodded, looking between both hyenas, “I’d say that was pretty ladylike of you, Jaide. Considering this whole wild reverse sex roles thing you got going on. Killer.”

Jaide started to return to his normal self, and he looked away modestly. “I couldn’t let him do that. Or say that.” He explained, gingerly taking up my hoof. Standing on his tip toes, he held my hoof in both paws and leaned forward, his dark muzzle and shiny lips parting as they neared mine.

I gave myself up to the kiss, closing my eyes and feeling him share the energy of what had happened with me. He was tentative with his tongue, but he still used it. It was new, and I didn’t hate it.

Kabirah chortled as Jaide broke the kiss, cocking her hips and looking up at Les. “Hey, let’s get the fuck outta here. Lyta, why don’t you text Simone. Get her out here. This dance sucks. Let’s go get some fuckin’ burgers or somethin’.”

“Nah.” Jaide said, panting, turning back around to his sister. “Let’s get pizza."


	6. Thicker Than Blood

“So, Ms. Laurillard, why don’t you tell me what’s going on in your life?”

I stared at him, his large fennec ears swiveling in my direction as if to say his brain was open for business.

“Uhhh… Not a thing. You know I get good grades, right? Do I have to be here?”

The guidance counselor smiled tiredly. “I have to see every student once or twice a year if I can. Lyta, you know you can talk to me about anything right? There’s privilege between us. Nothing you say leaves this room.”

I had never seen a therapist before. Since my mom divorced and remarried so early in my life, I never needed to talk through my feelings about it – I didn’t even remember it. In that dreary office with the school guidance counselor staring at me across a desk and a clip board, I had already decided that I had nothing to say. I didn’t think my life was any more or less complicated than anyone else’s. He should be talking to Kabirah and Jaide, not me.

“Well, I don’t know what you need to know.”

“Anything, Lyta. You’re a junior now, right? Any plans for college? You’re going to be a senior in a few months…”

“College?” I repeated, moving my legs around under me to shift my position. Why did the chair suddenly feel so uncomfortable? “I dunno. University of Zootopia… Don’t think my extracurriculars are good enough to go anywhere further away…”

The fennec took a note. “You don’t want to study abroad? Take in the sights of a foreign country?”

“I can go one district over and feel like I’m in a foreign country.”

“Hm, good point. Get out of Hyenahurst much?”

“No… Sometimes…” The last time I had been outside of Sahara Square was a drunken joyride ending in a car crash.

“Alright. What do you want to study? Maybe I can help you research some schools. Math? Science?”

“Ha, yeah right. Our textbooks are ten years old. I’m not too good at either.”

He stumbled over that, then said, “Anything else?”

I didn’t need to think about it. “I sometimes feel like I just… get languages.”

“Oh? Wahnese? Furench?”

“No, no… I mean, maybe. But I’m talking about the something that’s not always said. Like, you ever notice how hyenas laugh? How they position themselves in groups?”

“Well…”

“And fennecs – you’re doing it right now – the way your ears are moving. That’s saying something.”

“Sounds like you want to study biology.”

“Maybe… But what about linguistics?”

\--

I chose not to tell anyone about my meeting with the guidance counselor. The next time I saw Kabirah and Jaide, on the couch in front of the TV while my mom made dinner, Kabirah mentioned him herself.

“You guys see that counselor? He told me I wouldn’t get a scholarship with my grades. You don’t need a scholarship to be in MMA, dumbass. Besides, I’m still on the team and I’m still winning every match they put me in.”

Kabirah’s chest was all puffed up as she spoke about her favorite sport. Her jersey still stank of sweat, and I was tempted to ask her to take it off… But then she probably would have taken that the wrong way. She and Les were pretty steady, so I don’t think she’d want to jeopardize that.

Jaide rubbed my shoulder. He was sitting nice and close, and I could smell a new conditioner in his mane. Had he picked it out himself last time he and Kabirah went grocery shopping?

“Hey, Lyta, I wouldn’t worry. Kabirah’s gonna be here no matter what. Besides, if you and I both get into UZ it’s not like it’s that far away. Twenty minutes on the train.”

“Psh, everyone says degrees aren’t helping kids get jobs anyway. Besides, I don’t need anyone to teach me how to pin someone to the ground. I’ve got that down.”

“Isn’t MMA… you know… mixed?” I asked.

Kabirah snorted. “’Course it is hoofer. I’ll just take a class at the gym.”

“You call Les that? Hoofer?”

She grinned wide, looking me right in the eye. “When he’s good.”

Jaide snickered. I guess they were both dating prey now, maybe they shared details with each other. Did that mean Kabirah knew stuff like my measurements? Or that Jaide had told her what my body felt like?

“You girls want dinner? Oh, and boy. Sorry, Jaide.” My mom’s voice interrupted the filthy thought process I was headed down, and before I could reply Kabirah had jogged into the kitchen shouting ‘first!’ as she sat down next to my dad. I followed after, the smell of stewed vegetables making my stomach rumble.

“Hey Mister L. How’s the casino treating you?”

“Actually, I work in the hotel… But you know, thirteen years ago… Actually, did I ever tell you this story?”

My mom’s ears raised up like lightning rods ready to be struck.

“Will, no!”

Jaide had turned the TV off. He walked in and sat in one of the folding chairs we had brought in for the guests.

“Did I miss something?” He asked as a plate of ground insect was placed down in front of him, the spicy smell wafting up to his wet little nose.

Dad grinned across the table, putting his arm around Kabirah and, on his other side, me. Mom kept fussing about with the food, serving everyone, and then looking in the fridge for something to drink.

“Too bad Bea, I’m gonna tell it. Okay, thirteen years ago. I’m working on the casino floor-“

“Doing what?” Kabirah interrupted. Maybe she had a thing for the glitz and glamour? It was everything she didn’t have, after all…

Dad smirked up at mom, “I was half naked, wearing a toga and a laurel. Done up like Caesar. I’m walking around posing for pictures with tourists and suddenly I see these horns – prettiest horns I ever saw, still are – sticking up from behind a bank of slot machines.”

Jaide was giggling at the image. I couldn’t believe it. My own father was telling one of the most embarrassing stories he could to the rapt attention of my two best friends. I glared at mom, eyes begging for her to put a stop to it all, but she just shrugged and looked up as the memories flooded back.

“I stood there stock still until she came around to my side. She was new, because I had never seen her working the floor. She was to die for. She had a tray with drinks in one hoof, and one of the shortest mini-dresses. But the best part was the rest.”

Dad stopped and looked up at mom as she sat down. Everyone looking at her, actually. She took a bite of her salad, chewed, swallowed, and took off her glasses.

“Cleopatra. They were pushing the themes so much back then… I had it all, the eye makeup, this cropped black wig…”

“I couldn’t look away. The eyes, the jewelry… Long story short I married her a year after that. And I found out she had the most precious little calf in the world.” Dad purred and pinched my cheek teasingly.

I folded my arms as Kabirah and Jaide snorted and laughed.

“First time I heard that story…” I mumbled, drowned out by their amusement. I felt close to everyone at that moment. Kabirah kept asking questions about the outfits my parents had mentioned, and for the next hour we all ate our meals and enjoyed mom’s cooking. I had a good family, and good friends. Sure, things were hard for Kabirah and Jaide with their mom skipping out on them, but… Maybe we were all forming some sort of family together, motley as it was.

Kabirah was the first to finish her meal as usual, scarfing it down while the others talked. Just before she was done, she looked up at me, and I could feel her nudge me under the table. Her head tilted away toward the door, gesturing for me to follow her as she rose from the table and waved to my parents.

I left Jaide eating with them and followed Kabirah to the guest bedroom upstairs where she and Jaide had been staying. There was a book splayed out on the bed. A Furench textbook. Kabirah pointed to it and awkwardly asked for help.

“Aidez moi?” She fumbled through her terrible accent.

“You… want me to help you with your Furench homework?”

“Yeah.” Kabirah admitted, plopping down in an arm chair next to the bed. The sheets were a mess, bundled up on one corner, and her letterman jacket was draped over the back of the chair.

“No problem. This looks like grammar right here. Did you want to try and practice speaking with me? I’m in AP Furench this semester.”

Kabirah nodded. For a few minutes, we conversed back and forth. Her control of the language was nothing compared to her control on those around her, and for once I seemed to have the upper hoof in an exchange with her. When it seemed she had run out of things to say, she looked down at the book and turned the page this way and that, aimlessly.

“I was just thinkin’ a lot about you and Jaide… The way you talk about goin’ to college. What if I don’t get a scholarship? What if I’m workin’ in a convenience store in Hyenahurst ‘til I die??”

I had never heard her speak like this. Concerned, academic Kabirah was not a Kabirah I ever thought I’d meet.

“So you want to bring your grades up?”

“I wanna try.”

Amazing. I wonder if she had reached out to anyone else. It didn’t sound like she trusted the counselor as far as she could throw him. Trust was something Kabirah had very little of.

“Of course I’ll help you.”

“Damn right. Uh, and one other thing…” Kabirah muttered, reaching into her notebook and pulling out a page. I didn’t even know she had a notebook. She folded it up methodically until it was small enough to fit in her paw, and then, hesitantly, she handed it to me. “I don’t have a phone, so uh… Can you give this to Les at school tomorrow? I’m gonna be workin’. Almost got enough to give your mom for the month.”

I rubbed the note back and forth between my fingers and stared at it vacantly, or rather, full of a hundred ideas of what it could say. The mention of money snapped me out of it.

“Hey, I’m sure if we talk to mom about it she’ll understand… Maybe you should keep the money. Like, for emergencies. What if your mom comes back?”

“She’s not gonna come back.”

“How do you know that?”

Kabirah’s mane prickled. She rumbled gruffly and stared at me, her shoulders hunching as she moved to make herself appear even larger. It was obviously a sore spot. As part of her cackle, I knew better than to press any further. I couldn’t claim to know anything about what she was going through. I had my parents, they loved each other, and I can’t imagine either of them skipping out on me. All I could think of was that Kabirah had a new family now and that even if we went our separate ways for college we would all still keep in touch.

\--

How could I have forgotten?

It was “bring your parents” day at school. A special event that doubled as a chance for parents to check up on how their kids were doing in school and to make sure the teachers weren’t just screwing around all day. How was I going to pass a note to Les with a bunch of adults milling around and watching our every move? It felt like the prison had added additional guards.

Class was nearly unbearable. During third period, my parents had agreed to give a talk about their job working at the The Palm. I realize now that it was a transparent attempt to indoctrinate the impressionable youth into becoming the next generation of underpaid rank and file in the oasis casinos. Thankfully, both of them were wearing suits instead of the uniforms they had described in the story of how they met.

As they took turns describing the opportunities and the nature of their work, I zoned out. Instead of listening to them, which I had enough of at home, I shifted my eyes this way and that around the room. To my surprise, some of my classmates, one of the Brunson twins included, were flat out gaping at my parents. I couldn’t imagine why until I thought about it a little harder.

They were gawking because they were mixed species, and maybe even moreso, predator and prey.

I realized that I was never very open about it except with my immediate friends. I always just called them “dad” or “mom.” Who cared what species they were? Other mammals did. There would always be other mammals who questioned me, my family, my love interests. I had grown to know this throughout high school. I don’t know why I was surprised at that moment, but it quickly turned into painful memory.

I bided my time until lunch, laying low and avoiding participating in class as best I could. At lunch, I met up with my parents, then I told mom that I was having cramps and had to leave. She offered to come with, but I refused. Once out of sight, I headed to the usual spot behind the school library to find Les. He was there alone with Jaide, no parents in sight.

“Hey Lyta.” Les waved, seated comfortably on the bench next to Jaide. His legs were splayed out and his flannel shirt was tucked into his jeans.

“Hi. Jaide, uhh, I need to talk to Les for a minute…”

Jaide grinned. “If you two are seeing each other on the side, me and Kabirah will have to do the same.”

Balking, I shook my head. “Jaide! Just give me a minute. It’s not about anything like that.”

Jaide nodded, getting up off the bench and coming to kiss me before departing around the corner.

I waited a few moments to make sure he wouldn’t poke his head back around before I fished the note out of my backpack and handed it to Les.

“What’s…” He paused as unfolded it open and read the first few lines. “You know I never thought she’d be the type to write a love letter.”

“A what? From her?”

Les chuckled, rubbing the top of his hornless head. He had shed those recently. “Uh huh. Lyta, actually, I wanted to ask you something. Has Kabirah ever dated anyone else?”

“No.”

“Throughout all of high school?”

“It’s pretty much just been Kabirah, me, and Jaide. We’re inseparable. Oh, and Simone sometimes too.”

“Huh…” Processing the facts, Les spread his arms out over the back of the bench and looked up at the sky. It was so quiet in this spot; I wanted to sit down next to him, but fought the urge. What if Jaide was spying?

Finally, he continued. “I don’t know why I’m dating her.”

I sat down quickly, my voice hushed. “You aren’t going to break up with her, are you? She’ll take it out on me!”

Les laughed, his eyes scrunching up. “Hey, I wasn’t done. Give me a chance here Lyta. I’m just saying, like… She’s honorable. I’ve never met a girl like her. Like, she’s always pushing mammals around, working out, showing off… It feels like I’m dating a male sometimes. Am I crazy?” His thoughts and his voice drifted off and we both sat there. He appeared to be wrestling with what he was going to say next.

“Am I gay, Lyta?”

I fought laughter hard. I was practically crying and biting the insides of my cheeks to keep from bursting out laughing.

“I-I don’t think you’re gay just because you like Kabirah, Les. Species are different. Really different. You’re a deer. Maybe as an addax I know a bit more about that. But predators? Hyenas? Totally different.” A sudden realization struck me, and I chose my words carefully. “Uhh… Les, um, did you happen to see that one sex ed video in class the other day?”

“The crappy 90s one with the rabbit?”

“Yeah. Remember the part where… um… I mean, do you know that Kabirah has…”

“Yeah?”

“It’s called a pseudophallus. It’s something all female hyenas have. It’s-“

“She has a dick?”

Every muscle in my body screamed at me to exit the conversation as quickly as possible. I watched him closely, hyperaware of his body language though I didn’t know all that much about deer. He was slouching a bit, his eyes lost in thought for seconds bleeding into a minute. Then his lips parted to speak.

“That’s… kinda hot.”

“What?!”

Laughing, Les replied, “I’m just screwing with you.”

I leaned back.

“Look, she can have whatever she wants down there, I like her, and it doesn’t matter at the end of the day.”

“It… doesn’t matter?”

I looked inwardly for the first time during the conversation, and found my thoughts went immediately to Jaide. I was so fond of him even though to most other mammals he looked like a girl. Was this the same thing? Were Les and I just open-minded mammals, or was it because we had grown up in Hyenahurst, surrounded by the culture? I knew for certain that I didn’t care what Jaide had in his pants. He was so sweet and cute. How could I judge him for that? If he turned out to not be a boy somehow, we’d make it work.

“That’s pretty cool of you, after all she’s done to you.” I continued.

“Remember, she paid for the damages.”

“Yeah… Maybe she’s pretty cool too.”

We sat there, practically ruminating on our own words for several minutes before we heard light footsteps.

My hackles rose and I whipped my head around. Had someone heard our conversation?

It was Richard. The little dik-dik was springing along without a care in the world, right up to us like he knew we were there the whole time.

“Hey guys!”

Les broke into a goofy smile. “Hi, Richard. How’re things going with Simone?”

I knew the answer already. Simone hadn’t stopped texting me about it. It was ‘blissful, like the birth of a star’ she had said. After the dance that night they had been texting each other and hit it off even more. Simone was actually giddy when I talked to her about him face to face. Since I hadn’t seen Richard in a week or so, I was eager to find out what he thought of her.

“Gotta thank Ms. Matchmaker here.” Richard beamed, pointing his hoof at me. I sat down on the bench next to Les. “I mean, how could she know we would be such an amazing pair? She tutors me. She watches me shred at the skatepark – I mean, she brings a book, but still!”

He was stamping his hooves with excitement.

“I was a real bushdweller growing up, but now I’ve come out of my shell lately. I can tell Simone is a little shy, so I’m helping her with that, too. She’s such a sweet girl, even if she doesn’t always show it in obvious ways.”

“That’s great Rich!” I responded. I meant every word. Simone had me and the others as friends, but she always seemed a little… Off. I loved her to pieces, but I was sure that she needed someone special to help her more than I could.

“Hey! There she is!”

Shock. Like a garbage bag leaking suddenly on the way to the trash can, the Brunsons appeared from around the corner of the building, pointing and heading right toward us.

Elias approached first. His mane was taller than Yosef’s, and he wore a designer hoodie over a t-shirt. In Sahara Square weather. I could tell them apart despite them being ‘twins’ because they looked as different as a warthog and a giraffe. Yosef was plump, losing whatever natural grace came from being a brown hyena, which wasn’t much to begin with. He had Pucci shorts and a t-shirt with some stupid tough guy slogan on it.

I’m not sure which of them I hated more.

“Rich, take off. Get out of here.” I muttered, taking a sidelong step in front of him.

“Lyta—“

I looked down at him, hurting for the forceful demeanor I was projecting. “Leave. Casually.”

He seemed to understand, and took off without a word. I’d have to explain more later, but I thought everyone already knew about these two. Maybe Richard was just from a different crowd. A shorter crowd.

As Elias drew nearer, Les stood up, towering over all of us.

“Oh, hey, how’s it going? Hey, so, when I shed my antlers – just did a few weeks ago, you know, it’s the funniest thing – my hearing is gets a little funny for a while. Is that weird? So, let me clear this up: did you say, ‘sorry for bothering you?’” Les asked, tilting his head slowly as he studied the two strands.

Elias stopped short, sneered, and looked Les over from the hooves up.

“Fuck off. Hey, prey. Haven’t seen your owner in a while. Where’s big and stupid hiding?”

“Hu- Kabirah?” It clicked, and I responded. “Dunno, but I see little and stupid right here.”

Yosef snorted, tucking his head down and away from his brother’s gaze.

I turned, heading back toward the quad proper, to a crowd. To my parents. “See ya, strands.”

They followed after me for a time, but Les blocked them with a smile, putting himself between my exit and their pursuit. I looked over my shoulder one last time before turning the corner and finding my way back to the school. As the lunch bell rang, I headed toward my next class, eager to put yet another meeting with the Brunsons behind me.

That day, I decided to walk home with Jaide. I waved goodbye to my parents and kept my head down until I saw a familiar pattern of spots emerge from a herd of students desperate to escape the social snares of “bring your parents” day.

“Jaide! Hi! My parents drove home. I thought we’d walk like normal. Talk about today?”

Jaide pressed his slender shoulders against me and rubbed his mane under my chin. He had been so affectionate lately.

“Sure Lyta.” He agreed, taking my paw as we began to walk toward the street. We went the back way today, to avoid the teeming crowds and the myriad of cars blocking our escape with their constant traffic. Parents would stand outside their cars for a full half hour talking to other parents they knew. It would be too difficult to navigate our way through that mess.

“What did you and Les talk about?” Jaide asked a little sheepishly, but still completely off the cuff.

It was a little surprising, but then, he had turned over that new leaf recently, hadn’t he? I made a mental note of his forwardness, deciding I found it even more endearing.

But that didn’t mean I was going to tell him every little thing that passed my lips, not even the spat with the Brunsons. “Sorry, Les; hoofers only.” I teased, sing-song and carefree. He smirked in response as we passed down alleyways, sticking to the shade. The rays of the sun danced on our fur as we passed in and out of shadow. Life felt good, even with all we had been through. College felt attainable for all of us. We were all going to stay together, to stay friends. Jaide and I didn’t have to break up next year. Things weren’t perfect, but they were on the upswing.

I felt the wind leaving my stomach as a sharp punch doubled me over, leaving me gasping and bleating in surprise. My knees hit the ground and I heard Jaide yelp. The dark brown fur of two strandwolves stood out against the pale sandstone walls of the alley around us. Three strandwolves. Four?  My glasses tumbled to the ground as someone hit me again.

“Fuck-ing hoofer. First you date prey, then we find out your mom is fucking a pred? How much more are you gonna take from us? Fuckin’ gentrified ass hoofer.” Elias Brunson spit on the ground next to me. His brother, Yosef, was hanging back. I couldn’t see what was happening. “Tabitha was right, you do go this way sometimes.”

My mind raced. Tabitha was that cheerleader, the cougar who hung around the Brunsons. We didn’t run in the same circles, but after she dissed me at the party those weeks back, I knew I was at least on her radar. The idea that she was keeping tabs on our coming and going at school was unsettling to say the least. I didn’t have time to try and remember whether I had seen her throughout the day. I had a Brunson breathing down my neck.

I coughed, then desperately sucked in air. “What?! Look around you, this is Zootopia. Mixed and--” Another blow and my breath caught in my throat. My stomach lurched and I thought I would puke. I heard Jaide scream behind me. The heat of the dawning summer felt more oppressive than ever. I could feel it buzzing in my ears. Was it my adrenaline? I tried to turn my head, and caught the briefest glimpse of Jaide. He was against a wall, with two brown shapes pushing against him. How many were there?

Was it true after all? The Brunsons really were in a gang, and we were going to have our asses kicked, provided they hadn’t planned something else.

“Woah, you didn’t say we’d hurt her!” Was that Clark’s snorting voice?

A vast expanse of time seemed to click by with every second, and I was afraid to lift my neck for fear of another blow striking me. I curled up. I couldn’t protect Jaide, and Jaide, brave as he had shown me he was, could never take on four strandwolves by himself. I gritted my teeth and prepared for the worst.

The worst showed up right on time.

I heard a yelp, not Jaide, and opened my eyes. The sandswept pavement was all I saw until I was bold enough to turn my head and look.

“Hey, hey! What the fuck is she doing here?!” One of the Brunson’s gangbanger buddies shouted.

“Four against two? You assholes. Four against one is better!” Kabirah’s cackle sounded, echoing as it bounced off the alley walls.

“Fuck this, I’ve got merchandise to move.”

I saw a shadow movie, then the tail of one of the strandwolves as he ran away, disappearing like a drop of water in the Sahara summer. Everything was blurry. The other three seemed paralyzed by indecision. Another howling yelp – Jaide had done something. I whipped my head back down to the ground, feeling desperately for my glasses. Nothing. I looked up again, squinting to try and mitigate my poor vision.

There was Jaide, pulling at the mane of the strandwolf holding him, kicking at his legs to try and get him on the ground. His calm expression had twisted into a fearsome, snickering snarl, reddish drool dripping from his lips where he had been hit. Or was that just my imagination?

Why was I so helpless?

I heard Kabirah running forward, right for Elias. Yosef backed away at the same time, and when he heard a click, he ran as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. I think I hated Yosef a little less than Elias.

Still on my knees, I turned to Elias and Kabirah. Inches from my face, the nose of a taser crackled menacingly. The flash of Kabirah’s teeth as she approached stuck in my mind. She was grinning and laughing under her breath. She must have been freaked out. It was hot; she was dressed in a pair of shorts and her wrestling jersey. The Hurst High emblem crossed over my vision.

While Elias fumbled with the device he was holding, Kabirah scooped him under the arm and wrapped her leg around his. She pitched him to the ground, and fell with him. But it wasn’t a fall. It was a maneuver. Kabirah wasn’t a slouch on the wrestling team, not by a long shot. With overwhelming strength, she pinned Elias. She wrapped her arms around his, twisted his hand as it held the taser until it clacked harmlessly to the ground. Elias groaned in pain as she planted her legs against his torso and bent his arm out of position.

I fumbled for my glasses one more time. “Finally!” left me in a whisper as I felt them and scrambled to put them on. They were dotted with grains of sand., scratched. I turned my head to see Jaide pushing the other standwolf away from him, both of them looking like they had taken a few hits.

“Call the cops hoofer!” Kabirah shouted, her muscles locking to keep Elias in place.

“We’re in an alley, some guys jumped us!” I did. “Some of them ran away but this guy has a taser! He’s a brown hyena.” I listened to Kabirah. “We’re right next to Oleander avenue, hurry!” And I was glad she was here.

I practically dropped my cellphone once I was done explaining where we were and what was happening. My stomach lurched again as I got up off my knees, head still throbbing, and rushed over to Jaide. I didn’t look up. I tucked my head down instead, securing my neck in place. I had been called a hard-headed hoofer enough times, but I had never actually headbutted anything until now.

It felt pretty good.

It must have been his ribcage that I hit, and I was surprised that it didn’t actually hurt my head all that badly to do so. My horns weren’t fully grown in and twisted up like mom’s, but I still had the same skull my ancestors had, and it must have been harder than I thought. The strand fell backwards, and I finally got a good look at him. I was panting, huffing, and began to hear sirens in the distance. This guy wasn’t anyone I knew. He was older than us, probably in his twenties. An actual gang member?

“Nice of you to take time out of selling nip to jump my crew, bitch. And half your gang fucked off. You like that?” Kabirah asked, bending his arm further. Elias screamed, his free arm desperately pawing around for the taser. It had fallen too far away. It was kind of funny to watch, backed by the sound of Elias’ last friend getting to his paws and running away with his tail tucked between his legs.

Jaide slumped against the sandstone wall of the alley. I could see now that really was bleeding, mostly about his lip where he had been hit.

“I bit my cheek…” He mumbled, a nervous giggle under his breath.

I knelt beside him, unsure of where to touch, not wanting to hurt him. My handkerchief was in my pocket, and I used it to dab at his lip.

“The cops are almost here Jaide, hang on…”

“Oh, it’s not that bad, Lyta. Awesome headbutt.” He smiled a meek little smile.

Two camel officers arrived as I sat there nursing Jaide’s wounds. They had their dart pistols at the ready.

“Don’t shoot her!” I shouted at them as they approached, gesturing to Kabirah. “She was holding him until you got here. Like, a citizen’s arrest?”

The first camel, a female, tucked her pistol into a black belt on her navy-blue uniform. “Alright, come here.” She commanded as she bent down over Elias with her wristcuffs.

“That’s Elias Brunson. His brother Yosef ran off. They jumped us with two other guys. Both Strandwolves.” I tried to give them everything I remember. “Jaide, did you see who those guys were?”

Jaide shook his head.

“Is he hurt? Hey, kid, you hurt?” The male officer leaned over Jaide, squinting his eyes.

“It’s okay. Thanks officer.” Jaide replied, putting on a brave face for the camel.

The other officer dragged Elias back to the squad car as he yelped and growled over his shoulder. “Fuck you Dabaehar!”

Kabirah waved from where she was seated on the ground. “No thanks – but do ya have Yosef’s number?” Her laugh was the last thing he heard before the cop swung the door closed.

“We’re going to need you all to make statements,” the officer explained as she stomped back over to us, “hey, Darius, I’m gonna call in another car.”

\--

“And let me just ask one more time. How many mammals were there?” Officer Morelli, the female camel of the two, was leaning against her squad car. Another pair of cops had already come and taken Elias away.

“Four.” I said confidently. “Four strandwolves. Elias and Yosef Brunson, and two of their friends.”

“Actually…” Jaide cut in. He had a small patch of gauze on his lip that quivered when he spoke. “Three strandwolves. Lyta, Clark was with them. Your glasses fell off so I guess you didn’t see…”

Clark. The boar who had been asking me out day and night all junior year. Maybe he was getting tired of my rebuffing him, my dating Jaide. Was he into this “no mixing” business? Did he think my family was gentrifying the neighborhood? He was an omnivore, who cared what he thought on the issue? Still, it was pretty disgusting to think that his involvement in this was because I wouldn’t date him. It was bad enough the Brunsons liked to play turf war.

“Alright. Write down the names of the ones you know.” Officer Morelli handed Jaide a pen and a notepad. Jaide scribbled hastily, still agitated. He only looked up when a white van with the ZNN logo parked in the street with a screech. The race for a scoop, I guess.

A bunny and a wolf scrambled out of the van, the bunny wielding a microphone and the wolf hefting a camera up onto his shoulder. They were both mid-20s. The bunny was pretty, big eyes and light brown fur, while the wolf was a scruffier sort. They jogged up to us, but stopped a few yards away. The bunny hopped in a half-circle to face the camera with us over her shoulder, and took a moment to smooth out the fur on her face. The wolf flashed a hand signal.

“Abigail Hopps here with ZNN Streetline. We’re on the scene of the most recent eruption of gang violence in Hyenahurst, begging the question – what are police doing about crime on our streets?” She turned to the camel officer, who made a face and waved her hoof.

“Contact the public relations unit, sister.” She droned.

Dissatisfied, Abigail turned to us. “Do you kids want to tell us what happened? Were you involved?” She noted the gauze on Jaide’s lip.

“Uhhh… Y-yeah…” My eyes glazed over as the camera focused on us. The wolf rotated his paw for me to continue, but I was stifled by nerves.

“A couple guys jumped us in this alley.” Jaide said, a natural in front of the camera.

“Pred or prey?”

“What does that matter?”

“Just curious, Miss.”

Jaide rolled his eyes. “I’m a boy. They were preds okay?”

“And what happened?” Abigail insisted on getting every detail.

Jaide paused for a moment, surprised. He gestured over to Kabirah, who had been keeping to herself. Her back was pressed up against a sandstone wall, paws holding her elbows and head turned away.

“Well, they beat up on us for a while before my sister got here… She scared them away. Pinned one of them until the cops got here. She’s on the wrestling team.”

Abigail’s eyes lit up and she scampered over to Kabirah. Her head tilted back as she looked up at her.

“How does it feel to be a neighborhood hero? Say hello to Zootopia!”

Kabirah turned to look at her, then caught sight of the camerawolf behind her.

“U-uh…” Her ears turned down and she looked at the ground. “What? Uh, hi…” The smile on her face was as timid as I had ever seen. “Can we stop now?” She asked, leaning down to whisper to the bunny.

Abigail turned back to the camera. “There you have it! A truly modest hero. We’ll be sure to bring you any further developments on this story as it progresses. Be safe on those streets, mammals!” She held a practiced smile for a few seconds while the wolf’s hand signals counted down. Then he made a cutting motion with his paw and lowered the camera.

“Hey, thanks for chatting with us kids. Means a lot. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else… Here’s my card. You can always call us.” She walked back to Jaide and I and handed us each a card. Abigail Hopps, Streetline Division, ZNN.

“Thanks. Take care.” I called after them as they headed back to their van. The wolf waved a paw over his shoulder, but Abigail actually turned around to wave goodbye. Nice girl.

The commotion was finally dying down. The news had left, and the police were getting into their cruisers after making sure the scene was safe. Jaide and I approached Kabirah. She was biting her lip.

“Oh, man, that was crazy. How many people do you think we watching? Ugh. Fuck, I feel sick.” She chuckled awkwardly.

“Hey, Kabby… Thank you.” Jaide threw his arms around her and pressed his forehead into her chest. At first, she was startled. Then she put her paw on the back of his neck.

“Only brother I got. Just lucky I got home early and got tired of waitin’ for your ass. Thought I’d meetcha halfway.”

I hesitated, and then I hugged her too. “Thanks.”

Kabirah stiffened, eyes wide. Then she relaxed. “Aw, you woulda been fine. That hard hoofer head a yours? They’re just lucky they could get away fast enough.” Her voice was more tender than usual. She sounded like she did when she was reassuring Jaide after the car crash.

We held each other for a few moments before I was the one to break the embrace.

“It’s almost five, my parents might be home soon. Guess we gotta go tell them what happened…”

“We should talk it over on the way back. Get our stories straight.” Kabirah insisted.

“We didn’t do anything wrong.” Jaide seemed dismissive.

“Yeah, but you know Misses L Wears her bra pretty tight if you know what I mean.”

“Um, that’s my mom?”

“Yeah yeah. C’mon, I’m starvin’. Don’t make me carry your asses home.”


End file.
